fornia 
aal 

ty 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


ENGLISH  MEN   OF   LETTERS 
EDITED   BT  JOHN  MORLET 

SYDNEY   SMITH 


*%£2S^^^* 


ENGLISH   MEN   OF   LETTERS 


SYDNEY     SMITH 


BY  , 
GEORGE    W.    E.    RUSSELL 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1905 

Ail  rights  reserved 


COPTEIGHT,    1904, 

By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  January,  1905. 


Nottooot  Press 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Heiwiok  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

In  writing  this  Study  of  Sydney  Smith,  I  have  been 
working  in  a  harvest-field  where  a  succession  of  dili- 
gent gleaners  had  preceded  me. 

As  soon  as  Sydney  Smith  died,  his  widow  began 
to  accumulate  material  for  her  husband's  biography. 
She  did  not  live  to  see  the  work  accomplished,  but 
she  enjoined  in  her  will  that  some  record  of  his  life 
should  be  written.  The  duty  was  undertaken  by  his 
daughter,  Saba  Lady  Holland,  who  in  1855  published 
A  Memoir  of  the  Reverend  Sydney  Smith.  To  this 
memoir  was  subjoined  a  volume  of  extracts  from  his 
letters,  compiled  by  his  friend  and  admirer,  Mrs. 
Austin. 

For  nearly  thirty  years  Lady  Holland's  Memoir 
and  Mrs.  Austin's  Selection  of  Letters  together  con- 
stituted the  sole  Biography  of  Sydney  Smith,  and 
they  still  remain  of  prime  authority ;  but  they  are 
lamentably  inaccurate  in  dates. 

Lord  Houghton's  slight  but  vivid  monograph  was 
published  in  1873.  In  1884  Mr.  Stuart  Eeid  pro- 
duced A  Sketch  of  the  Life  and  Times  of  Sydney  Smith, 
in  which  he  supplemented  the  earlier  narrative  with 
some  traditions  derived  from  friends  then  living,  and 
"painted  the  figure  of  Sydney  Smith  against  the 
background  of  his  times."  In  1898  the  late  Sir  Leslie 
Stephen  contributed  an  article  on  Sydney  Smith  to 


vi  SYDNEY   SMITH 

the  Dictionai-y  of  National  Biography;  but  added  little 
to  what  was  already  known. 

On  these  various  writings  I  have  perforce  relied,  for 
their  respective  authors  seemed  to  have  exhausted  all 
available  resources.  Lord  Carlisle  has  some  of  Sydney 
Smith's  letters  at  Castle  Howard,  and  Lord  Ilchester 
has  some  at  Holland  House;  but  both  assure  me 
that  everything  Avorth  publishing  has  already  been 
published. 

I  have,  however,  been  more  fortunate  in  my  appli- 
cation to  my  cousin,  Mr.  Eollo  Kussell,  and  to  four  of 
Sydney  Smith's  descendants  —  Mr.  Sydney  Holland, 
]\[r.  Holland-Hibbert  of  Munden,  Miss  Caroline  Hol- 
land, and  Mrs.  Cropper  of  Ellergreen.  To  all  these 
my  thanks  are  due  for  interesting  information,  and 
access  to  valuable  records.  In  common  with  all  who 
use  the  Eeading-Eoom  of  the  British  Museum,  I  am 
greatly  indebted  to  the  skill  and  courtesy  of  Mr.  G.  F. 
Barwick. 

So  much  for  the  biographical  part  of  my  work.  In 
the  critical  part  I  have  relied  less  on  authority,  and 
more  on  my  own  devotion  to  Sydney  Smith's  writings. 
That  devotion  dates  from  my  schooldays  at  Harrow, 
and  is  due  to  the  kindness  of  my  father.  He  had 
known  "dear  old  Sydney"  well,  and  gave  me  the 
Collected  Works,  exhorting  me  to  study  them  as 
models  of  forcible  and  pointed  English.  From  that 
day  to  this,  I  have  had  no  more  favourite  reading. 

G.  W.  E.  R. 

November  12,  1904. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

Education  —  Salisbury  Plain — Edinburgh.        .        .        1 

CHAPTER  n 

"The  Edinburgh  Review"  —  London  —  "Moral  Phi- 
losophy " 24 

CHAPTER  III 
"Peter  Plymley" 45 

CHAPTER  IV 
Foston  —  "Persecuting  Bishops" — Bench  and  Bar  ,       77 

CHAPTER  V 

"  Catholic  Emancipation  "  —  Bristol — Combe  Floret 

—  Reform  —  Promotion 106 

CHAPTER  VI 

St.    Paul's  —  The    Parallelogram  —  "Archdeacon 

Singleton" — Collected  Works    ....     147 

CHAPTER  VII 

Characteristics  —  Humour  —  Politics  —  Culture  — 

Theories  of  Life  —  Religion 193 

Appendices 227 

Index 235 

vii 


SYDNEY  SMITH 

CHAPTER  I 

EDUCATION  —  SALISBURY    PLAIN  —  EDINBURGH 

A  WORTHY  tradesman,  who  had  accumulated  a  large 
fortune,  married  a  lady  of  gentle  birth  and  manners. 
In  later  years  one  of  his  daughters  said  to  a  friend  of 
the  family,  "  I  dare  say  you  notice  a  great  difference 
between  papa's  behaviour  and  mamma's.  It  is  easily 
accounted  for.  Papa,  immensely  to  his  credit,  raised 
himself  to  his  present  position  from  the  shop;  but 
mamma  was  extremely  well  born.  She  was  a  Miss 
Smith  —  one  of  the  old  Smiths,  of  Essex." 

It  might  appear  that  Sydney  Smith  was  a  growth 
of  the  same  majestic  but  mysterious  tree,  for  he  was 
born  at  Woodford ;  but  further  research  traces  his 
ancestry  to  Devonshire.  "  We  are  all  one  family,"  he 
used  to  say,  "  all  the  Smiths  who  dwell  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  You  may  try  to  disguise  it  in  any  way  you 
like  —  Smyth,  or  Smythe,  or  Smijth  ^  —  but  you  always 
get  back  to  Smith  after  all  —  the  most  numerous  and 
most  respectable  family  in  England."  When  a  com- 
piler of  pedigrees  asked  permission  to  insert  Sydney's 

1  For  this  remarkable  variant,  see  Burke's  Peerage,  Bowyer- 
Sinijth,  Bart. 

B  1 


2  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

arms  in  a  County  History,  he  replied,  "I  regret,  sir, 
not  to  be  able  to  contribute  to  so  valuable  a  work ; 
but  the  Smiths  never  had  any  arms.  They  invariably 
sealed  their  letters  with  their  thumbs."  In  later  life 
he  adopted  the  excellent  and  characteristic  motto  — 
Faber  7nece  fortunce;  and,  to  some  impertinent  questions 
about  his  grandfather,  he  replied  with  becoming  gravity 
—  "  He  disappeared  about  the  time  of  the  assizes,  and 
we  asked  no  questions." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  maligned  progenitor  came 
to  London  from  Devonshire,  established  a  business  in 
Eastcheap,  and  left  it  to  his  two  sons,  Eobert  and 
James.  Eobert  Smith  ^  made  over  his  share  to  his 
brother,  and  went  forth  to  see  the  world.  This 
object  he  pursued,  amid  great  vicissitudes  of  fortune 
and  environment,  till  in  old  age  he  settled  down  at 
Bishop's  Lydeard,  in  Somerset.  He  married  Maria 
Olier,  a  pretty  girl  of  French  descent,  and  by  her 
had  five  children :  Eobert  Percy  —  better  known  as 
"Bobus"  — born  in  1770;  Sydney  in  1771;  Cecil  in 
1772;  Courtenay  in  1773;   and  Maria  in  1774. 

Sydney  Smith  was  born  on  the  3rd  of  June;  and 
was  baptized  on  the  1st  of  July  in  the  parish  church 
of  Woodford.  His  infancy  was  passed  at  South 
Stoneham,  near  Southampton.  At  the  age  of  six  he 
was  sent  to  a  private  school  at  Southampton,  and 
on  the  19th  of  July  1782  was  elected  a  Scholar  of 
Winchester  College.  He  stayed  at  Winchester  for  six 
years,  and  worked  his  way  to  the  top  place  in  the 
school,  being  "  Prefect  of  Hall "  when  he  left  in  1788. 
Beyond  these  facts,  Winchester  seems  to  retain  no 

1  (1739-1827.) 


I.]  EDUCATION  3 

impressions  of  her  brilliant  son,  in  this  respect  con- 
trasting strangely  with  other  Public  Schools.  West- 
minster knows  all  about  Cowper  — and  a  sorry  tale  it  is. 
Canning  left  an  ineffaceable  mark  on  Eton.  Harrow 
abounds  in  traditions,  oral  and  written,  of  Sheridan 
and  Byron,  Peel  and  Palmerston.  But  Winchester  is 
silent  about  Sydney  Smith. 

Sydney,  however,  was  not  silent  about  Winchester. 
In  one  of  the  liveliest  passages  of  his  controversial 
writings,  he  said  :  — 

"I  was  at  school  and  college  with  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury :  ^  fifty-three  years  ago  he  knocked  me  down 
with  the  chess-board  for  checkmating  him  —  and  now  he  is 
attempting  to  take  away  my  patronage.  I  believe  these  are 
the  only  two  acts  of  violence  he  ever  committed  in  his 
life." 

Now  Howley  was  a  prefect  when  Sydney  was  a  junior, 
and  this  game  of  chess  must  have  been  (as  a  living 
Wykehamist  has  pointed  out  to  me)  "  a  command  per- 
formance." The  big  boy  liked  chess,  so  the  little 
boy  had  to  play  it :  the  big  boy  disliked  being  check- 
mated, so  the  little  boy  was  knocked  down.  This 
and  similar  experiences  probably  coloured  Sydney's 
mind  when  he  wrote  in  1810:  — 

"  At  a  Public  School  (for  such  is  the  system  established  by 
immemorial  custom)  every  boy  is  alternately  tyrant  and  slave. 
The  power  which  the  elder  part  of  these  communities  exercises 
over  the  younger  is  exceedingly  great ;  very  difficult  to  be 
controlled  ;  and  accompanied,  not  unfrequently,  with  cruelty 
and  caprice.  It  is  the  common  law  of  these  places,  that  the 
younger  should  be  implicitly  obedient  to  the  elder  boys ;  and 

1  William  Howley  (1766-1848). 


4  SYDNP:Y   smith  [chap. 

this  obedience  resembles  more  the  submission  of  a  slave  to 
his  master,  or  of  a  sailor  to  his  captain,  than  the  common 
and  natural  defei-ence  which  would  always  be  shown  by  one 
boy  to  another  a  few  years  older  than  himself.  Now,  this 
system  we  cannot  help  considering  as  an  evil,  because  it 
inflicts  upon  boys,  for  two  or  three  years  of  their  lives,  many 
painful  hardships,  and  much  unpleasant  servitude.  These 
sufferings  might  perhaps  be  of  some  use  in  military  schools; 
but  to  give  to  a  boy  the  habit  of  enduring  jirivations  to 
which  he  vsdll  never  again  be  called  upon  to  submit  —  to  inure 
him  to  pains  which  he  will  never  again  feel — and  to  subject 
him  to  the  privation  of  comforts,  with  which  he  will  always 
in  future  abound  —  is  surely  not  a  very  useful  and  valuable 
severity  in  education.  It  is  not  the  life  in  miniature  which 
he  is  to  lead  hereafter,  nor  does  it  bear  any  relation  to  it ; 
he  will  never  again  be  subjected  to  so  much  insolence  and 
caprice ;  nor  ever,  in  all  human  probability,  called  upon  to 
make  so  many  sacrifices.  The  servile  obedience  which  it 
teaches  might  be  useful  to  a  menial  domestic ;  or  the  habit 
of  enterprise  which  it  encourages  prove  of  importance  to  a 
military  partisan  ;  but  we  cannot  see  what  bearing  it  has  upon 
the  calm,  regular,  civil  life,  which  the  sons  of  gentlemen, 
destined  to  opulent  idleness,  or  to  any  of  the  more  learned 
professions,  are  destined  to  lead.  Such  a  system  makes  many 
boys  very  miserable ;  and  produces  those  bad  effects  upon  the 
temper  and  disposition  which  boyish  suffering  always  does 
produce.  But  what  good  it  does,  we  are  much  at  a  loss  to 
conceive.  Reasonable  obedience  is  extremely  useful  in  forming 
the  disposition.    Submission  to  tyranny  lays  the  foundation  of 

hatred,  suspicion, cunning,andavariety of  odious  passions 

"  The  wretchedness  of  school  tyranny  is  trifling  enough  to  a 
man  who  only  contemplates  it,  in  ease  of  body  and  tranquillity 
of  mind,  through  the  medium  of  twenty  intervening  years ; 
but  it  is  quite  as  real,  and  quite  as  acute,  while  it  lasts,  as 
any  of  the  sufferings  of  mature  life :  and  the  utility  of  these 
sufferings,  or  the  price  paid  in  compensation  for  them,  should 
be  clearly  made  out  to  a  conscientious  parent  before  he  con- 
sents to  expose  his  children  to  them." 


I,]  EDUCATION  5 

Lady  Holland  tells  us  that  in  old  age  her  father 
"  used  to  shudder  at  the  recollections  of  Winchester," 
and  represented  the  system  prevailing  there  in  his 
youth  as  composed  of  "abuse,  neglect,  and  vice." 
And,  speaking  of  the  experience  of  lower  boys  at 
Public  Schools  in  general,  he  described  it  as  "an 
intense  system  of  tyranny,  of  Avhich  the  English  are 
very  fond,  and  think  it  fits  a  boy  for  the  world ;  but 
the  world,  bad  as  it  is,  has  nothing  half  so  bad." 

"A  man  gets  well  pummelled  at  a  Public  School;  is 
subject  to  every  misery  and  every  indignity  which  seventeen 
years  of  age  can  inflict  upon  nine  and  ten ;  has  his  eye  nearly 
knocked  out,  and  his  clothes  stolen  and  cut  to  pieces;  and 
twenty  years  afterwards,  when  he  is  a  chrysalis,  and  has 
forgotten  the  miseries  of  his  grub  state,  is  determined  to  act 
a  manly  part  in  life,  and  says,  '  I  passed  through  all  that 
myself,  and  I  am  determined  my  son  shall  pass  through  it  as 
I  have  done';  and  away  goes  his  bleating  progeny  to  the 
tyranny  and  servitude  of  the  Long  Chamber  or  the  Large 
Dormitory.  It  would  surely  be  much  more  rational  to  say, 
'  Because  I  have  passed  through  it,  I  am  determined  my  son 
shall  not  pass  through  it.  Because  I  was  kicked  for  nothing, 
and  cuffed  for  nothing,  and  fagged  for  everything,  I  will 
spare  all  these  miseries  to  my  child.'  " 

And,  while  he  thus  condemned  the  discipline  under 
which  he  had  been  reared,  he  had  no  better  opinion 
of  the  instruction.  Not  that  he  was  an  opponent 
of  classical  education:  on  the  contrary,  he  had  a 
genuine  and  reasoned  admiration  for  "  the  two  ancient 
languages."  He  held  that,  compared  to  them,  "  merely 
as  vehicles  of  thought  and  passion,  all  modern  lan- 
guages are  dull,  ill-contrived,  and  barbarous."  He 
thought  that  even  the  most  accomplished  of  modern 
writers  might  still  be  glad  to  "  borrow  descriptive  power 


6  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

from  Tacitus  ;  dignified  perspiciiity  from  Livy  ;  sim- 
plicity from  Caesar ;  and  from  Homer  some  portion  of 
that  light  and  heat  which,  dispersed  into  ten  thousand 
channels,  has  filled  the  world  with  bright  images  and 
illustrious  thoughts.  Let  the  cultivator  of  modern 
literature  addict  himself  to  the  purest  models  of  taste 
which  France,  Italy,  and  England  could  supply  —  he 
might  still  learn  from  Virgil  to  be  majestic,  and  from 
Tibullus  to  be  tender ;  he  might  not  yet  look  upon  the 
face  of  nature  as  Theocritus  saw  it ;  nor  might  he  reach 
those  springs  of  pathos  with  which  Euripides  softened 
the  hearts  of  his  audience." 

This  sound  appreciation  of  what  was  best  in  classical 
literature  was  accompanied  in  Sydney  Smith  by  the 
most  outspoken  contempt  for  the  way  in  which  Greek 
and  Latin  are  taught  in  Public  Schools.  He  thought 
that  schoolmasters  encouraged  their  pupils  to  "  love 
the  instrument  better  than  the  end  —  not  the  luxury 
which  the  difficulty  encloses,  but  the  difficulty  —  not 
the  filbert,  but  the  shell  —  not  what  may  be  read  in 
G-reek,  but  Greek  itself." 

"  We  think  that,  in  order  to  secure  an  attention  to  Homer 
and  Virgil,  we  must  catch  up  every  man,  whether  he  is  to  be 
a  clergyman  or  a  duke,  begin  with  him  at  six  years  of  age, 
and  never  quit  him  till  he  is  twenty ;  making  him  conjugate 
and  decline  for  life  and  death ;  and  so  teaching  him  to 
estimate  his  progress  in  real  wisdom  as  he  can  scan  the 
verses  of  the  Greek  Tragedians." 


*o^ 


He  desired  that  boys  should  obtain  a  quick  and  easy 
mastery  over  the  authors  whom  they  had  to  read,  and 
on  this  account  he  urged  that  they  should  be  taught  by 
the  use  of  literal  and  interlinear  translations ;  but  "  a 
literal  translation,  or  any  translation,  of  a  school-book 


I.]  EDUCATION  7 

is  a  contraband  article  in  English  schools,  which  a 
schoolmaster  would  instantly  seize,  as  a  custom-house 
officer  would  seize  a  barrel  of  gin." 

Grammar,  gerund-grinding,  the  tyranny  of  the 
Lexicon  and  the  Dictionary,  had  got  the  schoolboys  of 
England  in  their  grasp,  and  the  boy  "  was  suffocated 
with  the  nonsense  of  grammarians,  overwhelmed  with 
every  species  of  difficulty  disproportionate  to  his 
age,  and  driven  by  despair  to  pegtop  or  marbles "  ; 
while  the  British  Parent  stood  and  spoke  thus  with 
himself :  — 

"  Have  I  read  through  Lilly  ?  Have  I  learnt  by  heart  that 
most  atrocious  monument  of  absurdity,  the  Westminster 
Grammar?  Have  I  been  whipt  for  the  substantives?  whipt 
for  the  verbs?  and  whipt  for  and  with  the  interjections? 
Have  I  picked  the  sense  slowly,  and  word  by  word,  out  of 
Hederich  ?  and  shall  my  son  be  exempt  from  all  this  misery  ? 
.  .  .  Ay,  ay,  it 's  all  mighty  well ;  but  I  went  through  this 
myself,  and  I  am  determined  my  children  shall  do  the  same." 

Another  grotesque  abuse  with  regard  to  which 
Sydney  Smith  was  a  reformer  fifty  years  before  his 
time  was  compulsory  versification.  — 

"  There  are  few  boys  who  remain  to  the  age  of  eighteen  or 
nineteen  at  a  Public  School  without  making  above  ten 
thousand  Latin  verses  —  a  greater  number  than  is  contained 
in  the  jEneid ;  and,  after  he  has  made  this  quantity  of  verses 
in  a  dead  language,  unless  the  poet  should  happen  to  be  a 
very  weak  man  indeed,  he  never  makes  another  as  long  as 
he  lives."  ^ 

"  The  English  clergy,  in  whose  hands  education  entirely 

1  In  1819  Sydney  Smith  violated  his  own  canon,  thus  :  "But, 
after  all,  I  believe  we  shall  all  go  — 

ad  veteris  Nicolai  tristia  regna, 
Pitt  ubi  combustum  Dundasque  videbimus  omnes." 


8  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

rests,  bring  np  the  first  young  men  of  the  country  as  if  they 
were  all  to  keep  grammar-schools  in  little  country-towns ; 
and  a  nobleman,  upon  whose  knowledge  and  liberality  the 
honour  and  welfare  of  his  country  may  depend,  is  diligently 
worried,  for  half  his  life,  with  the  small  pedantry  of  longs 
and  shorts." 

The  same  process  is  applied  at  the  other  end  of  the 
social  scale.  The  baker's  son,  young  Crumpet,  is  sent 
to  a  grammar-school,  "  takes  to  his  books,  spends  the 
best  years  of  his  life,  as  all  eminent  Englishmen  do,  in 
making  Latin  verses,  learns  that  the  Crum  in  Crumpet 
is  long  and  the  pet  short,  goes  to  the  University,  gets  a 
prize  for  an  essay  on  the  Dispersion  of  the  Jews,  takes 
Orders,  becomes  a  Bishop's  chaplain,  has  a  young 
nobleman  for  his  pupil,  publishes  a  useless  classic  and  a 
Serious  Call  to  the  Unconverted,  and  then  goes  through 
the  Elysian  transitions  of  Prebendary,  Dean,  Prelate, 
and  the  long  train  of  purple,  profit,  and  power." 

In  this  vivacious  passage,  Sydney  Smith  caricatures 
his  own  career ;  which,  though  it  neither  began  in  a 
baker's  shop  nor  ended  in  an  episcopal  palace,  followed 
pretty  closely  the  line  of  development  here  indicated. 
At  Winchester  he  "took  to  his  books"  with  such 
goodwill  that,  in  spite  of  all  hindrances,  he  became  an 
excellent  scholar,  and  laid  the  strong  foundations  for  a 
wide  and  generous  culture.  His  family  indeed  propa- 
gated some  pleasing  traditions  about  his  schooldays  — 
one  of  a  benevolent  stranger  who  found  him  reading 
Virgil  when  other  boys  were  playing  cricket,  patted  his 
head,  and  foretold  his  future  greatness ;  another  of  a 
round-robin  from  his  schoolfellows,  declining  to  compete 
against  him  for  prizes,  "  because  he  always  gained 
them."     But  this  is  not  history. 


I.]  EDUCATION  9 

From  Winchester  Sydney  Smith  passed  in  natural 
course  to  the  other  of  "  the  two  colleges  of  St.  Mary 
Winton " ;  and,  in  the  interval  between  Winchester 
and  Oxford,  his  father  sent  him  for  six  months  to 
Normandy,  with  a  view  to  improving  his  French. 
Eevolution  was  in  the  air,  and  it  was  thought  a 
salutary  precaution  that  he  should  join  one  of  the 
Jacobin  clubs  in  the  town  where  he  boarded,  and  he 
was  duly  entered  as  '•'  Le  Citoyen  Smit,  Membre  Affilie 
au  Club  des  Jacobins  de  Mont  Villiers." 

But  he  was  soon  recalled  to  more  tranquil  scenes. 
He  was  elected  Scholar  of  New  College,  Oxford, 
on  the  5th  of  January  1789,  and  at  the  end  of 
his  second  year  he  exchanged  his  Scholarship  for  a 
Fellowship.  From  that  time  on  he  never  cost  his 
father  a  farthing,  and  he  paid  a  considerable  debt  for 
his  younger  brother  Courtenay,  though,  as  he  justly 
remarks,  "  a  hundred  pounds  a  year  was  very  difficult 
to  spread  over  the  wants  of  a  College  life."  Ten  years 
later  he  wrote  —  "I  got  in  debt  by  buying  books.  I 
never  borrowed  a  farthing  of  anybody,  and  never  re- 
ceived much ;  and  have  lived  in  poverty  and  economy 
all  my  life." 

His  career  at  Oxford  is  buried  in  even  deeper 
obscurity  than  his  schooltime  at  Winchester.  This  is 
no  doubt  to  be  explained,  on  the  intellectual  side,  by 
the  fact  that  members  of  New  College  were  at  that 
time  exempt  from  public  examination;  and,  on  the 
social  side,  by  the  straitened  circumstances  which 
prevented  him  from  showing  hospitality,  and  the  pride 
which  made  him  unwilling  to  accept  what  he  could 
not  return.  We  are  left  to  gather  his  feelings  about 
Oxford  and  the  system  pursued  there,  from   casual 


10  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

references  in  his  critical  writings ;  and  these  are  un- 
complimentary enough.  When  he  wishes  to  stigmatize 
a  proposition  as  enormously  and  preposterously  absurd, 
he  says  that  there  is  "  no  authority  on  earth  (always 
excepting  the  Dean  of  Christ  Church),  which  could 
make  it  credible  to  me."  When  stirred  to  the  liveliest 
indignation  by  the  iniquities  which  a  Tory  Govern- 
ment is  practising  in  Ireland,  he  exclaims — "A  Senior 
Proctor  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  the  Head  of  a 
House,  or  the  examining  chaplain  to  a  Bishop,  may 
believe  these  things  can  last;  but  every  man  of  the 
world,  whose  understanding  has  been  exercised  in  the 
business  of  life,  must  see  (and  see  with  a  breaking 
heart)  that  they  will  soon  come  to  a  fearful  termina- 
tion." He  praised  a  comparison  of  the  Universities  to 
"enormous  hulks  confined  with  mooring-chains,  every- 
thing flowing  and  progressing  around  them,"  while 
they  themselves  stood  still. 

When  pleading  for  a  wider  and  more  reasonable 
course  of  studies  at  Oxford,  he  says :  — 

"  A  genuine  Oxford  tutor  would  shudder  to  hear  his  young 
men  disputing  upon  moral  and  pohtical  truth,  forming  and 
putting  down  theories,  and  indulging  in  all  the  boldness  of 
youthful  discussion.  He  would  augur  nothing  from  it  but 
impiety  to  God  and  treason  to  Kings." 

Protesting  against  the  undue  predominance  of 
classical  studies  in  the  Universities,  as  at  the  Public 
Schools,  he  says :  — 

"  Classical  literature  is  the  great  object  at  Oxford.  Many 
minds  so  employed  have  produced  many  works,  and  much 
fame  in  that  department :  but  if  all  liberal  arts  and  sciences 
useful  to  human  life  had  been  taught  ther&;  if  some  had 


I.]  EDUCATION  11 

dedicated  themselves  to  chemistry,  some  to  mathematics,  some 
to  experimental  philosophy;  and  if  every  attainment  had 
been  honoured  in  the  mixt  ratio  of  its  difficulty  and  utility ; 
the  system  of  such  an  University  would  have  been  much  more 
valuable,  but  the  splendour  of  its  name  something  less." 

The  hopelessness  of  any  attempt  to  reform  the 
curriculum  of  Oxford  by  opening  the  door  to  Political 
Economy  is  stated  with  characteristic  vigour.  — 

"  When  an  University  has  been  doing  useless  things  for  a 
long  time,  it  appears  at  first  degrading  to  them  to  be  useful. 
A  set  of  lectures  upon  Political  Economy  would  be  discouraged 
in  Oxford,  possibly  despised,  probably  not  permitted.  To 
discuss  the  Enclosure  of  Commons,  and  to  dwell  upon  imports 
and  exports  —  to  come  so  near  to  common  life,  would  seem  to 
be  undignified  and  contemptible.  In  the  same  manner,  the 
Parr  or  the  Bentley  of  his  day  would  be  scandalized  to  be  put 
on  a  level  with  the  discoverer  of  a  neutral  salt;  and  yet  what 
other  measure  is  there  of  dignity  in  intellectual  labour,  but 
usefulness  and  difficulty  ?  And  what  ought  the  term  Univer- 
sity to  mean,  but  a  place  where  every  science  is  taught  which 
is  liberal,  and  at  the  same  time  useful  to  mankind  ?  Nothing 
would  so  much  tend  to  bring  classical  literature  within 
proper  bounds  as  a  steady  and  invariable  appeal  to  these  tests 
in  our  appreciation  of  all  human  knowledge.  The  puffed-up 
pedant  would  collapse  into  his  proper  size,  and  the  maker  of 
verses  and  the  rememberer  of  words  would  soon  assume  that 
station  which  is  the  lot  of  those  who  go  up  unbidden  to  the 
upper  places  of  the  feast." 

In  1810  he  wrote,  with  reference  to  the  newly- 
invented  Examination  for  Honours  at  Oxford :  — 

"  If  Oxford  is  become  at  last  sensible  of  the  miserable  state 
to  which  it  was  reduced,  as  everybody  else  was  out  of  Oxford, 
and  if  it  is  making  serious  efforts  to  recover  from  the  degra- 
dation into  which  it  was  plunged  a  few  years  past,  the  good 
wishes  of  every  respectable  man  must  go  with  it." 


12  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

And  again :  — 

"  On  the  new  plan  of  Oxford  education  we  shall  offer  no 
remarks.  It  has  many  defects ;  but  it  is  very  honourable  to 
the  University  to  have  made  such  an  experiment.  The 
improvement  upon  the  old  plan  is  certainly  very  great ;  and 
we  most  sincerely  and  honestly  wish  to  it  every  species  of 
success." 

His  opinions  on  the  subject  of  the  Universities  did 

not  mellow  Avith  age.     As  late  as  1831  he  wrote  of  a 

friend  who  had  just  sent  his  son  to  Cambridge :  — 

"  He  has  put  him  there  to  spend  his  money,  to  lose  what 
good  qualities  he  has,  and  to  gain  nothing  useful  in  return. 
If  men  had  made  no  more  progress  in  the  common  arts  of 
life  than  they  have  in  education,  we  should  at  this  moment 
be  dividing  our  food  with  our  fingers,  and  drinking  out  of  the 
palms  of  our  hands." 

It  was  just  as  bad  when  a  lady  sent  her  son  to  his 
own  University.  — 

"  I  feel  for  her  about  her  son  at  Oxford,  knowing,  as  I  do, 
that  the  only  consequences  of  a  University  education  are  the 
growth  of  vice  and  the  waste  of  money." 

In  1792  Sydney  Smith  took  his  degree,^  and  now 
the  question  of  a  profession  had  to  be  faced  and 
decided.  It  was  necessary  that  he  should  begin  to 
make  money  at  once,  for  the  pecuniary  resources  of 
the  family,  narrow  at  the  best,  were  now  severely 
taxed  by  his  mother's  failing  health  and  by  the  cost  of 
starting  his  brothers  in  the  world.  At  Oxford,  he  had 
dabbled  in  medicine  and  anatomy,  and  had  attended 
the  lectures  of  Dr.,  afterwards  Sir  Christopher,  Pegge,^ 
who  recommended  him  to  become  a  doctor.     His  father 

1  He  became  M.A.  in  1796. 

2  (17G5-1822.)  Lees'  Reader  in  Anatomy  1790,  Regius  Professor 
of  Medicine  1801. 


I.J  SALISBURY   PLAIN  13 

wished  to  send  him  as  a  super-cargo  to  China  !  His 
own  strong  preference  was  for  the  Bar,  but  his  father, 
who  had  already  brought  up  one  son  to  that  profession 
and  found  it  more  expensive  than  profitable,  looked 
very  unfavourably  on  the  design ;  and  under  paternal 
pressure  the  wittiest  Englishman  of  his  generation 
determined  to  seek  Holy  Orders,  or,  to  use  his  own 
old-fashioned  phrase,  to  "enter  the  Church."  He 
assumed  the  sacred  character  without  enthusiasm,  and 
looked  back  on  its  adoption  with  regret.  "  The  law," 
he  said  in  after  life,  "  is  decidedly  the  best  profession 
for  a  young  man  if  he  has  anything  in  him.  In  the 
Church  a  man  is  thrown  into  life  with  his  hands  tied, 
and  bid  to  swim ;  he  does  well  if  he  keeps  his  head 
above  water." 

Under  these  rather  dismal  auspices,  Sydney  Smith 
was  ordained  Deacon  in  1794.  He  might,  one  Avould 
suppose,  have  been  ordained  on  his  Fellowship,  and 
have  continued  to  reside  in  College  with  a  view  to 
obtaining  a  Lectureship  or  some  other  office  of  profit. 
Perhaps  he  found  the  mental  atmosphere  of  Oxford 
insalubrious.  Perhaps  he  was  unpopular  in  College. 
Perhaps  his  political  opinions  were  already  too  liberal 
for  the  place.  Certain  it  is  that  his  visit  to  France, 
in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  Revolution,  had  led  him  to 
extol  the  French  for  teaching  mankind  "the  use  of  their 
power,  their  reason,  and  their  rights."  Whatever  was 
the  cause,  he  turned  his  back  on  Oxford,  and,  as  soon 
as  he  was  ordained,  became  Curate  of  Netheravon,  a 
village  near  Amesbury.^      As  he  himself  said,  "  the 

1  It  is  curious  tliat  tlie  date  and  place  of  Sydney  Smith's 
ordination  as  Deacon  cannot  be  traced.  He  would  naturally 
have  been  ordained  at    Salisbury    by  John  Douglas,  Bishop  of 


14  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

name  of  Curate  had  lost  its  legal  meaning,  and,  instead 
of  denoting  the  incumbent  of  a  living,  came  to  signify 
the  deputy  of  an  absentee."  He  had  sole  charge  of  the 
parish  of  Netheravon,  and  was  also  expected  to  perform 
one  service  every  Sunday  at  the  adjoining  village  of 
Littleton.  ''Nothing,"  wrote  the  new-fledged  curate, 
"  can  equal  the  profound,  the  immeasurable,  the  awful 
dulness  of  this  place,  in  the  which  I  lie,  dead  and  buried, 
in  ho]3e  of  a  joyful  resurrection  in  1796."  Indeed,  it 
is  not  easy  to  conceive  a  more  dismal  situation  for  a 
young,  ardent,  and  active  man,  fresh  from  Oxford,  full  of 
intellectual  ambition,  and  not  very  keenly  alive  to  the 
spiritual  opportunities  of  his  calling.  The  village,  a  kind 
of  oasis  in  the  desert  of  Salisbury  Plain,  was  not 
touched  by  any  of  the  coaching-roads.  The  only  method 
of  communication  with  the  outside  world  was  by  the 
market-cart  which  brought  the  necessaries  of  life 
from  Salisbury  once  a  week.  The  vicar  was  non- 
resident ;  and  the  squire,  Mr.  Hicks-Beach,  was  only 
an  occasional  visitor,  for  his  principal  residence  was 
fifty  miles  off,  at  Williamstrip,  near  Fairford.  (He 
had  acquired  Netheravon  by  his  marriage  with  Miss 
Beach.)  The  church  was  empty,  and  the  curate  in 
charge  likened  his  preaching  to  the  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness.    The  condition  of  the  village 

Sarum  ;  but  there  is  a  gap  in  that  prelate's  Register  of  Ordina- 
tions between  1791  and  1796.  He  may  have  been  ordained  on 
Letters  Dimissory  in  some  other  diocese.  He  was  raised  to  the 
Priesthood  in  Christ  Church  Cathedral,  Oxford,  on  the  22ud  of 
May  1796  by  Edward  Smallwell,  Bishop  of  Oxford  ;  being 
described  as  Fellow  of  New  College,  and  B.A. 

For  the  foregoing  facts  I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of 
Mr.  A.  R.  Maiden,  Registrar  of  the  Diocese  of  Salis))ury,  and 
Mr.  J.  A.  Davenport,   Registrar  of  the  Diocese  of  Oxford. 


I.]  SALISBURY  PLAIN  15 

may  best  be  judged  from  a  report  made  to  Mr.  Hicks- 
Beach  by  his  steward  in  1793.  Nearly  every  one  was 
dependent  on  parochial  relief.  Not  a  man  earned  ten 
shillings  a  week.  A  man  with  a  wife  and  four  children 
worked  for  six  shillings  a  week.  A  girl  earned,  by 
spinning,  four  shillings  a  month.  Idleness,  disease, 
and  immorality  were  rife ;  and,  as  an  incentive  to 
profitable  industry,  a  young  farmer  beat  a  sickly 
labourer  within  an  inch  of  his  life. 

Mrs.  Hicks-Beach  referred  this  uncomfortable  report 
on  the  condition  of  her  property  to  the  newly-installed 
curate,  requesting  his  opinion  on  the  cases  specified. 
The  curate  replied  with  characteristic  vigour.  One 
family  owed  its  wretched  condition  to  mismanagement 
and  extravagance ;  another  to  "  ignorance  bordering 
on  brutality  "  ;  another  to  "  Irish  extraction,  numbers, 
disease,  and  habits  of  idleness."  One  family  was 
composed  of  "  weak,  witless  people,  totally  wretched, 
without  sense  to  extricate  them  from  their  wretched- 
ness " ;  a  second  was  "  perfectly  wretched  and  helpless  " ; 
and  a  third  was  "  aliment  for  Newgate,  food  for  the 
halter  —  a  ragged,  wretched,  savage,  stubborn  race."  ^ 

The  squire  and  Mrs.  Hicks-Beach,  who  seem  to  have 
been  thoroughly  high-principled  and  intelligent  people, 
were  much  concerned  to  find  the  curate  corroborating 
and  even  expanding  the  evil  reports  of  the  steward. 
They  immediately  began  considering  remedies,  and 
decided  that  their  first  reform  should  be  to  establish 
a  Sunday-school.  The  institution  so  named  bore  little 
resemblance  to  the  Sunday-schools  of  the  present  day, 
but  followed  a  plan  which  Robert  Raikes  ^  and  Mrs. 

1  Quoted  by  Mr.  Stuart  Reid. 

2  (1735-1811.) 


16  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Hannah    More  ^   had    originated,    and   which   Bishop 
Shuts    Barrington^  (who  was   translated   to  Durham 
in    1791)    had    strongly   urged    on    the    Diocese   of 
Sarum.3     Boys  and  girls  were  taught  together.     The 
master  and  mistress  were  paid  the  modest  salary  of 
two  shillings  a  Sunday.      The  children  were  taught 
spelling  and  reading,  and,  as  soon  as  they  had  mastered 
those  arts,  were  made  to  read  the  Bible,  the  Prayer 
Book,  and  Mrs.  More's  tracts.     The  children  attended 
church,  sitting   together  in   a   big   pew,  and,  in  hot 
weather,  had  their  lessons  in  the  church,  before  and 
after  the  service.     As  soon  as  the  Sunday-school  had 
proved   itself   popular  and   successful,  an   Industrial 
School  was  arranged  for  three  nights  in  the  week,  so 
that  the  girls  of  the  village  might  be  taught  domestic 
arts.  Both  institutions  prospered,  and  ninety  years  later 
Mr.  Stuart  Eeid,  visiting  the  cottages  of  Netheravon 
in  order  to  collect  material  for  his  book,  caught  the 
lingering  tradition  that  Sydney  Smith  "  was  fond  of 
children  and  young  people,  and  took  pains  to  teach 
them." 

This  tradition  bears  out  what  Sydney  Smith  said  in 
his  Farewell  Sermon  to  the  people  of  Netheravon. 
Preaching  from  Proverbs  iv.  13,  ''  Take  fast  hold  of 
instruction,"  he  said :  — 


1  (1745-1833.)  2  (1734-1826.) 

8  "At  the  commencement  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
Sunday-school  had  become  a  part  of  the  regular  organization 
of  almost  every  well-worked  parish.  It  was  then  a  far  more 
serious  affair  than  it  is  now,  for,  where  there  was  no  week-day 
school,  it  supplied  secular  as  well  as  religious  instruction  to 
the  children.  In  fact,  the  Sunday-school  took  up  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  day."— J.  H.  Overton,  The  English  Church  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century. 


I.]  EDINBURGH  17 

"  The  Sunday-school  which,  with  some  trouble  and  expense, 
has  been  brought  to  the  state  in  which  you  see  it,  will  afford 
to  the  poorest  people  an  opportunity  of  giving  to  their  children 
some  share  of  education,  and  I  will  not  suppose  that  anybody 
can  be  so  indolent,  and  so  unprincipled,  as  not  to  exact  from 
their  children  a  regular  attendance  upon  it.  I  sincerely  exhort 
you,  and  beg  of  you  now,  for  the  last  time,  that  after  this 
institution  has  been  got  into  some  kind  of  order,  you  will  not 
suffer  it  to  fall  to  ruin  by  your  own  negligence.  I  have  lived 
among  your  children,  and  have  taught  them  myself,  and  have 
seen  them  improve,  and  I  know  it  will  make  them  better  and 
happier  men." 

And  now  a  change  was  at  hand.  The  curate  of 
Netheravon  had  never  intended  to  stay  there  longer 
than  he  was  obliged,  and  the  "  happy  resurrection  "  for 
which  he  had  hoped  came  in  an  unexpected  fashion. 
Here  is  his  own  account  of  his  translation,  written 
in  1839 :  — 

"  The  squire  of  the  parish  took  a  fancy  to  me,  and  requested 
me  to  go  with  his  son  to  reside  at  the  University  of  Weimar; 
before  we  could  get  there,  Germany  became  the  seat  of  war, 
and  in  stress  of  politics  we  put  into  Edinburgh,  where  I 
remained  five  years.  The  principles  of  the  French  Revolution 
were  then  fully  afloat,  and  it  is-impossible  to  conceive  a  more 
violent  and  agitated  state  of  society." 

Sydney  Smith  and  his  pupil,  Michael  Beach,^  arrived 
at  Edinburgh  in  June  1798.  They  lodged  successively 
at  38  South  Hanover  Street,  19  Ann  Street,  and 
46  George  Street.  The  University  of  Edinburgh  was 
then  in  its  days  of  glory.  Dugald  Stewart  was  Pro- 
fessor of  Moral  Philosophy ;  John  Playfair,  of  Mathe- 
matics; John  Hill,  of  Humanity.  The  teaching  was 
at  once  interesting   and   systematic,  the  intellectual 

1  Grandfather  of  Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach,  M.P. 
c 


18  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

atmosphere  liberal  and  enterprising.  English  parents 
who  cared  seriously  for  mental  and  moral  freedom, 
such  as  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
and  Lord  Lansdowne,  sent  their  sons  to  Edinburgh 
instead  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  The  University  was 
in  close  relations  with  the  Bar,  then  adorned  by  the 
great  names  of  Erancis  Jeffrey,  Erancis  Horner,  Henry 
Brougham,  and  Walter  Scott.  While  Michael  Beach 
was  duly  attending  the  professorial  lectures,  his  tutor 
was  not  idle.  From  Dugald  Stewart,  and  Thomas 
Brown,  he  acquired  the  elements  of  Moral  Philosophy. 
He  gratified  a  lifelong  fancy  by  attending  the  Clinical 
Lectures  given  by  Dr.  Gregory^  in  the  hospitals  of 
Edinburgh,  and  studied  Chemistry  under  Dr.  Black.^ 
He  amused  himself  with  chemical  experiments.  — 

"  I  mix'd  4  of  Holland  gin  with  8  of  olive  oil,  and  stirr'd 
them  well  together.  I  then  added  4  of  nitric  acid.  A  violent 
ebullition  ensued.  Nitrous  oether,  as  I  suppos'd,  was  gener- 
ated, and  in  about  four  hours  the  oil  became  perfectly  con- 
crete, white  and  hard  as  tallow." 

To  these  scientific  pastimes  were  soon  added  some 
more  professional  activities.  The  Episcopalians  of 
Edinburgh  at  this  time  worshipped  in  Charlotte  Chapel, 
Eose  Street,  which  was  sold  in  1818  to  the  Baptists. 
The  incumbent  was  the  Rev.  Archibald  Alison,^  who 
wrote  a  treatise  on  "  Taste "  and  ministered  in  one 
of  the  ugliest  buildings  in  the  world.  The  arrival  in 
Edinburgh  of  a  clever  young  man  in  English  Orders 
was  an  opportunity  not  to  be  neglected,  and  Sydney 

1  James  Gregory  (1753-1821),  Professor  of  Medicine. 

2  Joseph  Black  (172&-1799),  Professor  of  Chemistry. 
8  (1757-1839.) 


I.] 


EDINBURGH  19 


Smith  was  often  invited  to  preacli  in  Charlotte  Chapel. 
Writing  to  Mr.  Hicks-Beach,  he  says :  — 

"  I  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  my  audience  nod  approba- 
tion while  they  sleep." 

And  again :  — 

"  The  people  of  Edinburgh  gape  at  my  sermons.  In  the 
middle  of  an  exquisite  address  to  Virtue,  beginning  '0 
Virtue ! '  I  saw  a  rascal  gaping  as  if  his  jaws  were  torn 
asunder." 

But  this,  though  perhaps  it  may  have  perplexed  the 
worthy  squire  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  is  mere  self- 
banter.  Sydney's  preaching  attracted  some  of  the 
keenest  minds  in  Edinburgh.  It  was  fresh,  practical, 
pungent ;  and,  though  rich  in  a  vigorous  and  resound- 
ing eloquence,  was  poles  asunder  from  the  rhetoric  of 
which  "  0  Virtue  ! "  is  a  typical  instance. 

So  popular  were  these  sermons  at  Charlotte  Chapel 
that  in  1800  the  preacher  ventured  to  publish  a  small 
volume  of  them,  which  was  soon  followed  by  a  second 
and  enlarged  edition.  This  book  of  sermons  is  dedi- 
cated to  Lord  Webb  Seymour^  —  "because  I  know 
no  man  who,  in  spite  of  the  disadvantages  of  high 
birth,  lives  to  more  honourable  and  commendable 
purposes  than  yourself." 

The  preface  to  the  book  is  a  vigorous  plea  for  greater 
animation  in  preaching,  a  wider  variety  of  topics,  and 
a  more  direct  bearing  on  practical  life,  than  were  then 
usual  in  the  pulpits  of  the  Church  of  England. 

"  Is  it  wonder,"  he  asks,  "  that  every  semi-delirious  sectary, 
who  pours  forth  his  animated  nonsense  with  the  genuine  look 

1  (1777-1819.)     Son  of  the  10th  Duke  of  Somerset. 


20  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

and  voice  of  passion,  should  gesticulate  away  the  congregation 
of  the  most  profound  and  learned  divine  of  the  Established 
Church,  and  in  two  Sundays  preach  him  bare  to  the  very 
sexton  ?  Why  are  we  natural  everywhere  but  in  the  pulpit? 
No  man  expresses  warm  and  animated  feelings  anywhere  else, 
with  his  mouth  alone,  but  with  his  whole  body  ;  he  articulates 
with  every  limb,  and  talks  from  head  to  foot  with  a  thousand 
voices.  Why  this  holoplexia  on  sacred  occasions  alone  ?  Why 
call  in  the  aid  of  paralysis  to  piety?  Is  it  a  rule  of  oratory  to 
balance  the  style  against  the  subject,  and  to  handle  the  most 
sublime  truths  in  the  dullest  language  and  the  driest  manner? 
Is  sin  to  be  taken  from  men,  as  Eve  was  from  Adam,  by 
casting  them  into  a  deep  slumber  ?  Or  from  what  possible 
perversion  of  common  sense  are  we  to  look  like  field-preachers 
in  Zembla,  holy  lumps  of  ice,  numbed  into  quiescence  and 
stagnation  and  mumbling  ?  " 

The  subjects  with  whicli  these  sermons  deal  are 
practical  in  the  highest  degree,  such  as  "The  Love 
of  Country,"  "  The  Poor  Magdalen,"  "  The  Causes  of 
Republican  Opinions,"  "  The  Effect  of  Christianity  on 
Manners,"  and  "The  Treatment  of  Servants."  One 
or  two  short  samples  of  his  thought  and  style  will 
not  be  out  of  place. 

This  is  from  his  sermon  on  the  Magdalen :  — 

"  The  best  mediation  with  God  Almighty  the  Father,  and 
His  Son  of  Mercy  and  Love,  is  the  prayer  of  a  human  being 
whom  you  have  saved  from  perdition." 

This  is  from  the  sermon  on  "Christianity  and 
Manners  "  :  — 

"  If  ye  would  that  men  should  love  you,  love  ye  also  them, 
not  with  gentleness  of  face  alone,  or  the  shallow  mockery  of 
smiles,  but  in  singleness  of  heart,  in  forbearance,  judging 
mercifully,  entering  into  the  mind  of  thy  brother,  to  spare  him 
pain,  to  prevent  his  wrath,  to  be  unto  him  an  eternal  fountain 


I.]  EDINBURGH  21 

of  peace.  These  are  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  and  this  the 
soul  that  emanates  from  our  sacred  religion.  If  ye  bear  these 
fruits  now  in  the  time  of  this  life,  if  ye  write  these  laws  on 
the  tablets  of  your  hearts  so  as  ye  not  only  say  but  do  them, 
then  indeed  are  ye  the  true  servants  of  Jesus  and  the  children 
of  His  redemption.  For  you  He  came  down  from  Heaven ; 
for  you  He  was  scorned  and  hated  upon  earth ;  for  you 
mangled  on  the  Cross ;  and  at  the  last  day,  when  the  trumpet 
shall  sound,  and  the  earth  melt,  and  the  heavens  groan  and 
die,  ye  shall  spring  up  from  the  dust  of  the  grave,  the  ever- 
living  spirits  of  God." 

All  the  sermons  breathe  the  same  fiery  indignation 
against  cruelty  and  tyranny,  the  same  quick  sympathy 
vt^ith  poverty,  suffering,  and  debasement;  and,  here 
and  there,  especially  in  the  occasional  references  to 
France  and  Switzerland,  they  show  pretty  clearly  the 
preacher's  political  bias.  In  his  own  phrase,  he  "  loved 
truth  better  than  he  loved  Dundas,^  at  that  time  the 
tyrant  of  Scotland  " ;  and  it  would  have  been  a  miracle 
if  his  outspokenness  had  passed  without  remonstrance 
from  the  authoritative  and  privileged  classes.  But  the 
spirited  preface  to  the  second  edition  shows  that  he 
had  already  learned  to  hold  his  own,  unshaken  and 
unterrified,  in  what  he  believed  to  be  a  righteous 
cause : — 

"  As  long  as  God  gives  me  life  and  strength  I  will  never 
cease  to  attack,  in  the  way  of  my  profession  and  to  the  best 
of  my  abilities,  any  system  of  j)rinciples  injurious  to  the 
public  happiness,  whether  they  be  sanctioned  by  the  voice  of 
the  many,  or  whether  they  be  not ;  and  may  the  same  God 
take  that  unworthy  life  away,  whenever  I  shrink  from  the 
contempt  and  misrepresentation  to  which  my  duty  shall  call 
me  to  submit." 

1  Henry  Dundas  (1742-1811),  Lord  Advocate,  created  "Viscount 
Melville  in  1802. 


22  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

The  year  1800  was  marked,  for  Sydney  Smith,  by 
an  event  even  more  momentous  than  the  publication 
of  his  first  book.  It  was  the  year  of  his  marriage. 
His  sister  Maria  had  a  friend  and  schoolfellow  called 
Catharine  Amelia  Pybus.  He  had  known  her  as  a 
child ;  and  while  still  quite  young  had  become  engaged 
to  marry  her,  whenever  circumstances  should  make 
it  possible.  The  young  lady's  father  was  John  Pybus, 
who  had  gone  to  India  in  the  service  of  the  Company, 
attained  official  distinction  and  made  money.  Eeturn- 
ing  to  England,  he  settled  at  Cheam  in  Surrey,  where 
he  died  in  1789.  In  1800  his  daughter  Catharine  was 
twenty-two  years  old.  Her  brother,  a  Tory  Member 
of  Parliament  and  a  placeman  under  Pitt,  strongly 
objected  to  an  alliance  with  a  penniless  and  unknown 
clergyman  of  Liberal  principles ;  but  Miss  Pybus  hap- 
pily knew  her  own  mind,  and  she  was  married  to 
Sydney  Smith  in  the  parish  church  of  Cheam  on  the 
2nd  of  July  1800.  The  bride  had  a  small  fortune  of 
her  own,  and  this  was  just  as  well,  for  her  husband's 
total  wealth  consisted  of  "  six  small  silver  teaspoons," 
which  he  flung  into  her  lap,  saying,  "  There,  Kate,  you 
lucky  girl,  I  give  you  all  my  fortune  !  " 

In  the  autumn  of  1800,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sydney 
Smith  established  themselves  at  No.  46  George  Street, 
Edinburgh.  Mrs.  Smith  sold  her  pearl  necklace  for 
£500,  and  bought  plate  and  linen  with  the  proceeds. 
Michael  Beach  had  now  quitted  Edinburgh  for  Oxford, 
but  his  younger  brother  William  took  his  place  in  the 
Smiths'  house,  and  was  joined  by  the  eldest  son  of 
Mr.  Gordon  of  Ellon.  Lady  Holland  states  that  with 
each  of  these  young  gentlemen  her  father  received 
£400  a  year;  and  Mr.  Hicks-Beach,  grateful  for  his 


I.]  EDINBURGH  23 

good  influence  on  Michael,  made  a  considerable  addi- 
tion to  the  covenanted  payment. 

In  1802  the  Smiths'  eldest  child  was  born  and  was 
christened  Saba.  The  name  Avas  taken  out  of  the 
Psalms  for  the  Fourteenth  Day  of  the  Month,  and  was 
bestowed  on  her  in  obedience  to  her  father's  con- 
viction that,  where  parents  were  constrained  to  give 
their  child  so  indistinctive  a  surname  as  Smith,  they 
ought  to  counterbalance  it  with  a  Christian  name 
more  original  and  vivacious.  Saba  Smith  became 
the  wife  of  the  eminent  physician.  Sir  Henry  Holland, 
and  died  in  1866.  The  other  children  were  —  a  boy, 
who  was  born  and  died  in  1803 ;  Douglas,  born  in 
1805,  died  in  1829  ;  Emily,  wife  of  Nathaniel  Hibbert, 
born  in  1807,  died  in  1874 ;  Wyndham,  born  in  1813, 
died  in  1871. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   EDINBURGH   REVIEW LONDOIf  —  "MORAL 

PHILOSOPHY  " PREFERMENT 

We  now  approach  what  was  perliaps  the  most  impor- 
tant event  in  Sydney  Smith's  life,  and  this  was  the 
foundation  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Writing  in 
1839,  and  looking  back  upon  the  struggles  of  his  early 
manhood,  he  thus  described  the  circumstances  in  which 
the  Review  originated  :  — 

"  Among  the  first  persons  with  whom  I  became  acquainted 
[in  Edinburgh]  were  Lord  Jeffrey,  Lord  Murray  (late  Lord 
Advocate  for  Scotland),  and  Lord  Brougham ;  all  of  them 
maintaining  opinions  \\])o\\  political  subjects  a  little  too 
liberal  for  the  dynasty  of  Dundas,  then  exercising  supreme 
power  over  the  northern  division  of  the  Island. 

"One  day  we  happened  to  meet  in  the  eighth  or  ninth 
story  or  flat  in  Buccleugh  Place,  the  elevated  residence  of  the 
then  Mr.  Jeffrey.  I  proposed  that  we  should  set  up  a  Re- 
view ;  this  was  acceded  to  with  acclamation.  I  was  appointed 
Editor,  and  remained  long  enough  in  Edinburgh  to  edit  the 
first  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Revietv.  The  motto  I  pro- 
posed for  the  Review  was  — 

'  Temd  rmisam  meditamur  arena.'' 
'  We  cultivate  literature  on  a  little  oatmeal.' 

But  this  was  too  near  the  truth  to  be  admitted,  and  so  we 
took  our  jiresent  grave  motto  from  Publius  Syrus,  of  whom 
none  of  us  had,  I  am  sure,  ever  read  a  single  line ;  and  so 
began  what  has  since  turned  out  to  be  a  very  important 

24 


ciiAP.  II.]  THE  EDINBURGH  BEVIEW  25 

and  able  journal.  When  I  left  Edinburgh,  it  fell  into  the 
stronger  hands  of  Lord  Jeffrey  and  Lord  Brougham,  and 
reached  the  highest  point  of  popularity  and  success. 

"  To  appreciate  the  value  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  the 
state  of  England  at  the  period  when  that  journal  began  should 
be  had  in  remembrance.  The  Catholics  were  not  emancipated. 
The  Corporation  and  Test  Acts  were  unrepealed.  The  Game- 
Laws  were  horribly  oppressive  ;  steel-traps  and  spring-guns 
were  set  all  over  the  country ;  prisoners  tried  for  their  lives 
could  have  no  counsel.  Lord  Eldon  and  the  Court  of 
Chancery  pressed  heavily  on  mankind.  Libel  was  punished 
by  the  most  cruel  and  vindictive  imprisonments.  The 
principles  of  Political  Economy  were  little  understood.  The 
laws  of  debt  and  conspiracy  were  upon  the  worst  footing. 
The  enormous  wickedness  of  the  slave-trade  was  tolerated. 
A  thousand  evils  were  in  existence,  which  the  talents  of 
good  and  able  men  have  since  lessened  or  removed ;  and  these 
efforts  have  been  not  a  little  assisted  by  the  honest  boldness 
of  the  Edinburgh  Review." 

Lord  Brougham  has  left  on  record  a  similar  account. 

"  I  at  once  entered  warmly  into  Smith's  scheme.  Jeffrey, 
by  nature  always  rather  timid,  was  full  of  doubts  and  fears. 
It  required  all  Smith's  overpowering  vivacity  to  argue  and 
laugh  Jeffrey  out  of  his  difficulties.  There  would,  he  said, 
be  no  lack  of  contributors.  There  was  himself,  ready  to 
write  any  number  of  articles,  or  to  edit  the  whole  ;  there  was 
JeSrej,  facile princeps  in  all  kinds  of  literature;  there  was 
myself,  full  of  mathematics  and  everything  relating  to  the 
Colonies ;  there  was  Horner  for  Political  Economy,  and 
Murray  for  General  Subjects.  Besides,  might  we  not,  from 
our  great  and  never-to-be-doubted  success,  fairly  hope  to  re- 
ceive help  from  such  leviathans  as  Playfair,  Dugald  Stewart, 
Thomas  Brown,  Thomson,  and  others  ?  " 

These  bright  forecasts  put  heart  of  grace  into  the 
timid  Jeffrey.  Sydney  Smith's  jovial  optimism  pre- 
vailed.    The    financial    part    of    the    business     was 


26  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

arranged  with  Constable  in  Edinburgh,  and  Longman 
in  London :  and  the  first  number  (clad  in  that  famous 
livery  of  Blue  and  Buff  ^  which  the  Whigs  had  copied 
from  Charles  Fox's  coat  and  waistcoat)  appeared  in  the 
autumn  of  1802.     The  cover  was  thus  inscribed  — 

THE   EDIXBURGH  REVIEW 

OR 

CRITICAL  JOURXAL 

FOR 

Oct.  1802  — Jan.  1803 
To  he  continued  quarterly 


Judex  damnatur  cum  nocens  absolvitur 

PuBLius  Syrus. 

To  this  first  number  Sydney  Smith  contributed  five 
articles.  Four  of  these  are  reviews  of  sermons,  and 
the  fifth  is  a  slashing  attack  on  John  Bowles,-  who 
had  published  an  alarmist  pamphlet  on  the  designs 
of  France.  Jeffrey  thought  this  attack  too  severe, 
but  the  author  could  not  agree.  He  thought  Bowles 
"  a  very  stupid  and  a  very  contemptible  fellow." 

"  He  has  been  hangman  for  these  ten  years  to  all  the  poor 
authors  in  England,  is  generally  considered  to  be  hired  by 

1  "  Yet  mark  one  caution,  ere  thy  next  Review 

Spread  its  light  wings  of  Saffron  and  of  Blue, 
Beware  lest  blundering  Brougham  spoil  the  sale, 
Turn  Beef  to  Bannocks,  Cauliflowers  to  Kail." 

Byron,  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers. 

2  Barrister,  and  writer  of  political  pamphlets  between  1791 
and  1807. 


IT.]  THE  EDINBUBGH  BE  VIEW  27 

government,  and  has  talked  about  social  order  till  he  has 
talked  himself  into  £600  or  £700  per  annum.  That  there 
can  be  a  fairer  object  for  critical  severity  I  cannot  conceive." 

To  the  first  four  numbers  Sydney  Smith  contributed 
in  all  eighteen  articles ;  and  he  continued  to  con- 
tribute, at  irregular  intervals,  till  1827.  The  substance 
and  style  of  his  articles  will  be  considered  later  on. 
As  to  his  motives  in  writing,  he  stated  them  to 
Jeffrey  as  being,  "First,  the  love  of  you;  second, 
the  habit  of  reviewing ;  third,  the  love  of  money ;  to 
which  I  may  add  a  fourth,  the  love  of  punishing 
fraud  and  folly." 

Ticknor^  has  put  it  on  record  that,  late  in  life, 
Sydney  Smith  thus  described  his  pecuniary  relations 
with  the  Review :  —  "  When  I  wrote  an  article,  I  used 
to  send  it  to  Jeffrey,  and  waited  till  it  came  out ;  im- 
mediately after  which  I  enclosed  to  him  a  bill  in  these 
words,  or  words  like  them :  '  Francis  Jeffrey,  Esq., 
to  Rev.  Sydney  Smith :  To  a  very  wise  and  witty 
article  on  such  a  subject,  so  many  sheets,  at  forty-five 
guineas  a  sheet ' ;  and  the  money  always  came." 

Sydney  Smith  "  remained  long  enough  in  Edin- 
burgh to  edit  the  first  number"  of  the  new  review, 
but  he  now  determined  to  leave  Edinburgh  and  settle 
in  London,  and  Jeffrey  became  editor.  Regarding 
Holy  Orders  frankly  as  a  profession,  Sydney  naturally 
desired  professional  advancement,  and  this  of  course 
could  not  be  attained  in  presbyterian  Scotland.  "I 
could  not  hold  myself  justified  to  my  wife  and  family 
if  I  were  to  sacrifice  any  longer  to  the  love  of  present 

1  George  Ticknor  (1791-1871) ,  Axaerican  traveller  and  man  of 
letters. 


28  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

ease,   tliose   exertions  which  every  man  is  bound  to 
make  for  the  improvement  of  his  situation." 

He  left  Edinburgh  with  very  mixed  feelings,  for 
he  hated  the  place  and  loved  its  inhabitants.  He 
called  it  ''  that  energetic  and  un fragrant  city."  He 
dwelt  in  memory  on  its  "  odious  smells,  barbarous 
sounds,  bad  suppers,  excellent  hearts,  and  most 
enlightened  and  cultivated  understandings." 

"  No  nation,"  he  said,  "  has  so  large  a  stock  of  benevolence 
of  heart,  as  the  Scotch.  Their  temper  stands  anything  but  an 
attack  on  their  climate.  They  would  have  you  even  believe 
they  can  ripen  fruit ;  and,  to  be  candid,  I  must  own  in 
remarkably  warm  summers  I  have  tasted  peaches  that  made 
most  excellent  pickles;  and  it  is  upon  record  that  at  the 
Siege  of  Perth,  on  one  occasion  the  ammunition  failing,  their 
nectarines  made  admirable  cannon-balls.  Even  the  enlight- 
ened mind  of  Jeffrey  caunot  shake  off  the  illusion  that 
myrtles  flourish  at  Craig  Crook.^  In  vain  I  have  represented 
to  him  tliat  they  are  of  the  genus  Carduus,  and  pointed  out 
their  prickly  peculiarities.  .  .  .  Jeffi'ey  sticks  to  his  myrtle 
illusions,  and  treats  my  attacks  with  as  much  contempt  as  if 
I  had  been  a  wild  visionary,  who  had  never  breathed  his 
caller  air,  nor  lived  and  suffered  under  the  rigour  of  his 
climate,  nor  spent  five  years  in  discussing  metaphysics  and 
medicine  in  that  garret  of  the  earth  —  that  kniickle-end  of 
England  —  that  land  of  Calvin,  oatcakes,  and  sulphur." 

As  soon  as  he  reached  England,  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  Jeffrey :  — 

"  I  left  Edinburgh  with  great  heaviness  of  heart :  I  knew 
what  I  was  leaving,  and  was  ignorant  to  what  I  was  going. 
My  good  fortune  will  be  very  great,  if  I  should  ever  again 
fall  into  the  society  of  so  many  liberal,  correct,  and  instructed 
men,  and  live  with  them  on  such  terms  of  friendship  as  I 
have  done  with  you,  and  you  know  whom,  at  Edinburgh." 

1  Jeffrey's  house  near  Edinburgh- 


II.]  LONDON  29 

On  arriving  in  London,  in  the  autumn  of  1803, 
the  Sydney  Smiths  lodged  for  a  while  at  77  Upper 
Guilford  Street,  and  soon  afterwards  established  them- 
selves at  8  Doughty  Street.  Sydney's  dearest  friend, 
Francis  Horner,^  had  preceded  him  to  London,  and  was 
already  beginning  to  make  his  mark  at  the  Bar,  with- 
out, apparently,  abandoning  his  philosophical  pursuits. 
''  He  lives  very  high  up  in  Garden  Court,  and  thinks 
a  good  deal  about  Mankind."  But  he  coidd  spare  a 
thought  for  individuals  as  well  as  for  the  race,  and 
did  a  great  deal  towards  securing  his  friend  an  in- 
troduction into  congenial  society.  Doughty  Street 
was  a  legal  quarter,  and  among  those  with  whom  the 
Smiths  soon  made  friends  were  Sir  Samuel  Romilly, 
James  Scarlett  (afterwards  Lord  Abinger),  and  Sir 
James  Mackintosh.  To  these  were  added  as  time 
went  on,  Henry  Grattan,  Alexander  Marcet,  John 
"William  Ward  (afterwards  Lord  Dudley),  Samuel 
Eogers,  Henry  Luttrell,  "Conversation"  Sharp,  and 
Lord  Holland. 

Sydney  Smith's  eldest  brother  Eobert  ("  Bobus  " ') 
had  married  Caroline  Vernon,  Lord  Holland's  aunt. 
Sydney's  politics  were  the  politics  of  Holland  House. 
Lord  Holland  was  always  recruiting  for  the  Liberal 
army,  and  an  Edinburgh  Reviewer  was  a  recruit  worth 

1  (1778-1817.)  Barrister  and  M.P.  On  his  death,  Sydney  Smith 
wrote  —  "I  say  nothing  of  the  great  and  miserable  loss  we  have 
all  sustained.  He  will  always  live  in  our  recollection;  and  it 
will  be  useful  to  us  all,  in  the  great  occasions  of  life,  to  reflect 
how  Horner  would  act  and  think  in  them,  if  God  had  prolonged 
his  life." 

2  Sydney  Smith  used  to  say,  "Bobus  and  I  have  inverted 
the  laws  of  nature.  He  rose  by  his  gravity;  I  sank  by  my 
levity." 


30  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

capturing.  So  the  hospitable  doors  were  soon  thrown 
open  to  the  young  clergyman  from  Doughty  Street, 
who  suddenly  found  himself  a  member  of  the  most 
brilliant  circle  ever  gathered  under  an  English  roof. 
In  old  age  he  used  to  declare,  to  the  amusement  of  his 
friends,  that  as  a  young  man  he  had  been  shy,  but 
had  wrestled  with  the  temptation  and  overcome  it.  As 
regards  the  master  ^  of  Holland  House,  it  was  not  easy 
to  be  shy  in  the  presence  of  "  that  frank  politeness 
which  at  once  relieved  all  the  embarrassment  of  the 
youngest  and  most  timid  writer  or  artist,  who  found 
himself  for  the  first  time  among  Ambassadors  and 
Earls."  ^  And  even  the  imperious  mistress  ^  of  the 
house  found  her  match  in  Sydney  Smith,  who  only 
made  fun  of  her  foibles,  and  repaid  her  insolence  with 
raillery.  Referring  to  this  period,  when  he  had  long 
outlived  it,  he  said :  — 

"  I  well  remember,  when  Mrs.  Sydney  and  I  were  young, 
in  London,  with  no  other  equipage  than  my  umbrella, 
when  we  went  out  to  dinner  in  a  hackney  coach  (a  vehicle,  by 
the  bye,  now  become  ahnost  matter  of  history),  when  the 
rattling  step  was  let  down,  and  the  proud,  powdered  red- 
plushes  grinned,  and  her  gown  was  fringed  with  straw,  how 
the  iron  entered  into  my  soul." 

One  of  the  most  useful  friends  whom  the  Smiths 
discovered  in  London  was  Mr.  Thomas  Bernard,'*  after- 
wards a  baronet  of  good  estate  in  Buckinghamshire, 

1  Henry  Richard  (1773-1840),  3rd  Lord  Holland. 

2  Macaulay,  "  Lord  Holland." 

8  The  Lady  Holland  who  figures  so  frequently  in  Sydney  Smith's 
correspondence  was  Elizabeth  Vassall  (1770-1845),  wife  of  the  3rd 
Lord  Holland.  Sydney  Smith's  daughter,  Saba,  did  not  become 
Lady  Holland  till  1853,  when  her  husband,  Dr.  Holland,  was  made 
a  baronet.  ^  (1750-1818.) 


II.]  LONDON  81 

and  a  zealous  worker  in  all  kinds  of  social  and 
educational  reform.  Mr.  Bernard  was  Treasurer  of 
the  Royal  Institution  in  Albemarle  Street,  which 
had  been  founded  in  1799 ;  and,  with  the  laudable 
desire  of  putting  a  few  pounds  into  a  friend's  pocket, 
he  suggested  that  Sydney  Smith  should  be  invited  to 
lecture  before  the  Institution.  The  invitation  was 
cordially  given  and  gratefully  accepted.  The  lecturer 
chose  "Moral  Philosophy"  for  his  subject,  and  the 
Introductory  Lecture,  in  which  he  defined  his  terms, 
was  delivered  on  the  10th  of  November  1804.  The 
second  and  third  lectures  dealt  with  the  History  of 
Moral  Philosophy;  the  fourth,  with  the  Powers  of 
External  Perception ;  the  fifth,  with  Conception ;  the 
sixth,  with  Memory ;  the  seventh,  with  Imagination ; 
the  eighth,  with  Eeason  and  Judgment ;  and  the  ninth, 
with  the  Conduct  of  the  Understanding. 

These  lectures  were  treated  by  the  author  as  form- 
ing one  course,  their  general  subject  being  "  The 
Understanding."  In  February  1805  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  Jeffrey :  —  ''I  got  through  my  first  course  I  think 
creditably ;  whether  any  better  than  creditably  others 
know  better  than  myself.  I  have  still  ten  to  read." 
This  second  course  followed  immediately  on  the  first, 
and,  under  the  general  head  of  "  Taste,"  discussed 
topics  so  various  as  "  Wit  and  Humour,"  "  The  Beauti- 
ful," "  The  Sublime,"  "  The  Faculties  of  Animals  as 
compared  with  those  of  Man,"  and  ''  The  Faculties  of 
Beasts."  By  this  time  the  lectures  had  become 
fashionable.     One  eye-witness  writes :  — 

"  All  Albemarle  Street,  and  a  part  of  Grafton  Street,  was 
rendered  impassable  by  the  concourse  of  carriages  assembled 
there  during  the  time  of   their  delivery.     There  was   not 


32  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

sufficient  room  for  the  persons  assembling ;  the  lobbies  were 
filled,  and  the  doors  into  them  from  the  lecture-room  were 
left  open." 

Horner  reckoned  "  from  six  to  eight  hundred  hearers 
and  not  a  seat  to  be  procured,  even  if  you  go  there  an 
hour  before  the  time."  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  who  had  just 
left  Harrow,  was  one  of  the  audience,  and  remembered 
the  lectures  forty  years  after  their  delivery.  As  late 
as  1843,  Dr.  WhewelP  inquired  if  they  were  still 
accessible.  Sydney  Smith,  according  to  Lord  Houghton, 
described  his  performances  as  "the  most  successful 
swindle  of  the  season";  and,  writing  to  Jeffrey  in 
April  1805,  he  says :  — 

"My  lectures  are  just  now  at  such  an  absurd  pitch  of 
celebrity,  that  I  must  lose  a  good  deal  of  reputation  before 
the  i^ublic  settles  into  a  just  equilibrium  respecting  them. 
I  am  most  heartily  ashamed  of  my  own  fame,  because  I  am 
conscious  I  do  not  deserve  it,  and  that  the  moment  men  of 
sense  are  provoked  by  the  clamour  to  look  into  my  claims, 
it  will  be  at  au  end." 

Notwithstanding  this  premonition,  the  lecturer  ad- 
ventured on  a  third  course,  winch  was  delivered  at  the 
same  place  in  the  spring  of  1806.  "Galleries  were 
erected,  which  had  never  before  been  required,  and 
the  success  was  complete."  The  general  subject  of  this 
third  course  was  "  The  Active  Powers  of  the  Mind," 
and  it  dealt  with  "  The  Evil  Affections,"  "  The  Benevo- 
lent Affections,"  "The  Passions,"  "The  Desires," 
"  Surprise,  Novelty,  and  Variety,"  and  "  Habit." 

As  soon  as  the  lectures  were  delivered,  the  lecturer 
threw  the  manuscripts  into  the  fire;  and  it  is  satis- 

1  William  Whewell  (1794-1866),  Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, author  of  Elements  of  Morality,  18i5. 


II.]  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  33 

factory  to  find  that  he  did  not  take  his  performance 
very  seriously,  or  set  a  very  high  value  on  his  philo- 
sophical attainments.  In  1843  he  wrote,  in  reply  to 
Dr.  Whewell's  inquiry :  — 

"  My  lectures  are  gone  to  the  dogs,  and  are  utterly  for- 
gotten. I  knew  nothing  of  Moral  Philosophy,  but  I  was 
thoroughly  aware  that  I  wanted  £200  to  furnish  my  house. 
The  success,  however,  was  prodigious;  all  Albemarle 
Street  blocked  up  with  carriages,  and  such  an  uproar  as 
I  never  remember  to  have  seen  excited  by  any  other  literary 
imposture.  Every  week  I  had  a  new  theory  about  Concep- 
tion and  Perception,  and  supported  it  by  a  natural  manner, 
a  torrent  of  words,  and  an  impudence  scarcely  credible  in  this 
prudent  age.  Still,  in  justice  to  myself,  I  must  say  there  were 
some  good  things  in  them.   But  good  and  bad  are  all  gone." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  they  were  not  "all 
gone."  Mrs.  Smith  had  rescued  the  manuscripts,  a 
good  deal  damaged,  from  the  flames,  and  after  her 
husband's  death  she  published  the  three  courses  in  one 
volume  under  the  title,  Elementary  Sketches  of  Moral 
Philosophy. 

Was  it  worth  while  to  publish  them  ?  The  answer 
must  depend  on  the  object  of  publication.  If  the  book 
was  meant  to  be  considered  as  a  serious  contribu- 
tion to  mental  science,  the  manuscripts  might  as  well 
have  remained  where  their  author  threw  them.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  was  intended  only  to  show  the 
versatility,  adroitness,  and  plausibility  of  a  young 
man  in  need  of  money,  nothing  could  have  better 
illustrated  those  aspects  of  Sydney  Smith's  char- 
acter and  career.  He  is  thirty-three  years  old,  married, 
with  an  increasing  family,  and  no  means  of  subsistence 
beyond  periodical  journalism  and  odd  jobs  of  clerical 


34  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

duty.  "  Two  or  three  random  sermons,"  he  says,  "  I 
have  discharged,  and  thought  I  perceived  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  congregation  thought  me  mad. 
The  clerk  was  as  pale  as  death  in  helping  me  off  with 
my  gown,  for  fear  I  should  bite  him."  He  wants 
money  to  furnish  his  house.  A  benevolent  friend 
obtains  him  the  opportunity  of  lecturing.  It  is  not 
uncharitable  to  suppose  that  he  chooses  a  subject 
in  which  accurate  knowledge  and  close  argument  will 
be  less  requisite  than  fluency,  fancy,  bold  statement, 
and  extraordinarily  felicitous  illustration.  The  live 
years  spent  in  Edinburgh  can  now  be  turned  to  pro- 
fitable account.  Dugald  Stewart's  lectures  can  be 
exhumed,  decorated,  and  reproduced.  The  whole  book 
reeks  of  Scotland.  The  lecturer  sets  out  by  declaring 
that  Moral  Philosophy  is  taught  in  the  Scotch 
Universities  alone.  England  knows  nothing  about  it. 
At  Edinburgh  Moral  Philosophy  means  Mental  Philo- 
sophy, and  is  concerned  with  "the  faculties  of  the 
mind  and  the  effects  which  our  reasoning  powers 
and  our  passions  produce  upon  the  actions  of  our 
lives."  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  ethics  or  duty. 
And  the  definition  used  in  Edinburgh  is  also  used 
in  Albemarle  Street.  Dugald  Stewart  and  Thomas 
Brown  ^   and    Adam    Smith,    Hume    and    Reid    and 

1  Sydney  Smith  wrote  his  friend  Sir  George  Philips  in  1836  — 
"Thomas  Brown  was  an  intimate  friend  of  mine,  and  used  to 
dine  with  me  regularly  every  Sunday  in  Edinburgh.  He  was 
a  Lake  poet,  a  profound  metaphysician,  and  one  of  the  most 
virtuous  men  that  ever  lived.  As  a  metaphysician,  Dugald 
Stewart  was  a  humbug  to  him.  Brown  had  real  talents  for 
the  thing.  You  must  recognize,  in  reading  Brown,  many  of 
those  arguments  with  which  I  have  so  often  reduced  you  to 
silence  in  metaphysical   discussions.    Your  discovery  of  Brown 


11.]  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  35 

Oswald  and  Beattie  and  Ferguson,  are  names  which 
meet  us  on  every  page.  The  lecturer  has  learnt 
from  Scotsmen,  and  reproduces  what  the  Scotsmen 
taught  him.  Mind  and  Matter  are  two  great  realities. 
When  people  are  informed  that  all  thought  is  ex- 
plained by  vibrations  and  "  vibratiuncles "  of  the 
brain,  and  that  what  they  consider  their  arms  and 
legs  are  not  arms  and  legs  but  ideas,  then,  says  the 
lecturer,  they  will  pardonably  identify  Philosophy 
with  Lunacy.  "  Bishop  Berkeley  destroyed  this  world 
in  one  octavo  volume ;  and  nothing  remained  after  his 
time  but  Mind ;  which  experienced  a  similar  fate  at 
the  hand  of  Mr.  Hume  in  1737.  .  .  .  But  is  there  any 
one  out  of  Bedlam  who  doubts  of  the  existence  of 
matter  ?  who  doubts  of  his  own  personal  identity?  or 
of  his  consciousness  ?  or  of  the  general  credibility  of 
memory  ?  " 

From  this  rough-and-ready  delimitation  of  the  area 
within  which  Moral  Philosophy  must  work,  if  it  is  to 
escape  the  reproach  of  insanity,  the  lecturer  goes  on, 
as  becomes  a  divine,  to  champion  his  study  against 
the  reproach  of  tending  to  Atheism.  He  groups  all 
our  senses,  faculties,  and  impulses  together,  and  says : 
"  All  these  things  Moral  Philosophy  observes,  and, 
observing,  adores  the  Being  from  whence  they  pro- 
ceed." 

Having  thus  defined  his  subject,  the  lecturer  goes 
on,  in  his  second  and  third  lectures,  to  trace  the 
history  of  Moral  Philosophy,  from  Pythagoras  to 
Mrs.  Trimmer.     Plato  is  praised  for  beauty  of  style, 

is  amusing.  Go  on!  You  will  detect  Dryden  if  you  persevere; 
bring  to  light  John  Milton,  and  drag  William  Shakspeare  from 
his  ill-deserved  obscurity!  " 


36  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

and  blamed  for  mistiness  of  doctrine.  Aristotle  is 
contrasted,  greatly  to  his  disadvantage,  with  Bacon. 
"  Volumes  of  Aristotelian  philosophy  have  been  written 
which,  if  piled  one  upon  another,  would  have  equalled 
the  Tower  of  Babel  in  Height,  and  far  exceeded  it  in 
Confusion."  But  to  Bacon  "we  are  indebted  for  an 
almost  daily  extension  of  our  knowledge  of  the  laws 
of  nature  in  the  outward  world;  and  the  same 
modest  and  cautious  spirit  of  enquiry,  extended  to 
Moral  Philosophy,  will  probably  give  us  clear,  intelli- 
gible ideas  of  our  spiritual  nature." 

The  remaining  lectures  of  this  course  are  those 
which  suffered  most  severely  from  the  flames,  and  are 
indeed  in  so  fragmentary  a  condition  as  to  render  any 
close  criticism  of  them  impossible.  But  enough  has  been 
quoted  to  show  that  Sydney  Smith,  so  far  as  he  was 
in  any  sense  concerned  with  philosophy,  was  a  sworn 
foe  to  mysticism  and  ideality,  and  a  worshipper  of 
■Baconian  common-sense  even  in  the  sphere  of  mind 
land  soul. 

He  was  never  tired  of  poking  fun  at  his  philoso- 
phical friends  in  Edinburgh.  When  sending  some 
Scotch  grouse  to  Lady  Holland,  he  said  —  "I  take  the 
liberty  to  send  you  two  brace  of  grouse  —  curious,  be- 
cause killed  by  a  Scotch  metaphysician:  in  other  and 
better  language,  they  are  mere  ideas,  shot  by  other 
ideas,  out  of  a  pure  intellectual  notion  called  a  gun." 
In  another  letter  to  the  same  correspondent  he  says  — 
"  I  hope  you  are  reading  Mr.  Stewart's  book,  and  are 
far  gone  in  the  Philosophy  of  Mind  —  a  science,  as  he 
repeatedly  tells  us,  still  in  its  infancy.  I  propose, 
myself,  to  wait  till  it  comes  to  years  of  discretion." 

To  his  friend  Jeffrey  he  wrote  in  1804 :  — 


II.]  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  37 

"I  exhort  you  to  restrain  the  violent  tendency  of  your 
nature  for  analysis,  and  to  cultivate  synthetical  propensities. 
What  is  virtue  ?     What 's  the  use  of  truth  ?     What 's  the  use 

of  honour?     What's  a  guinea  but  a  d d  yellow  circle? 

The  whole  effort  of  your  mind  is  to  destroy.  Because  others 
build  slightly  and  eagerly,  you  employ  youi'self  in  kicking 
down  their  houses,  and  contract  a  sort  of  aversion  for  the 
more  honourable,  useful,  and  difficult  task  of  building  well 
yourself." 

He  reports  a  saying  of  his  little  boy's,  "  which  in 
Scotland  would  be  heard  as  of  high  metaphysical 
promise.  Emily  was  asking  why  one  flower  was  blue, 
and  another  pink,  and  another  yellow.  '  Why,  in 
short,'  said  Douglas,  '  it  is  their  nature  ;  and,  when  we 
say  that,  what  do  we  mean  ?  It  is  only  another  word 
for  mystery ;  it  only  means  that  we  know  nothing  at  all 
about  the  matter.'  This  observation  from  a  child  eight 
years  old  is  not  common." 

The  second  and  third  courses  of  lectures  wonld 
force  us  (even  if  we  had  not  the  lecturer's  confession 
to  guide  us)  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had 
said  all  he  knew  about  Moral  Philosophy,  and  rather 
more,  in  the  first  course.  It  is  only  by  the  exercise  of 
a  genial  violence  that  his  dissertations  on  Wit  and 
Humour,  Irish  Bulls,  Taste,  Animals,  and  Habit,  can 
be  forced  to  take  shelter  under  the  dignified  title  of 
Moral  Philosophy.  But,  philosophical  defects  apart, 
they  are  excellent  lectures.  They  abound  in  miscel- 
laneous knowledge  and  out-of-the-way  reading,  and 
they  bristle  with  illustrations  which  have  passed  into 
the  common  anecdotage  of  mankind. 

"  In  the  late  rebellion  in  Ireland,  the  rebels,  who  had  con- 
ceived a  high  degree  of  indignation  against  some  great  banker, 
passed  a  resolution  that  they  would  burn  his  notes,  which 


88  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

accordingij  they  did,  with  great  assiduity;  forgetting  tliat, 
in  burning  his  notes,  they  were  destroying  his  debts,  and  that 
for  every  note  which  went  into  the  flames,  a  correspondent 
value  went  into  the  banker's  pocket." 

In  every  war  of  the  last  century  this  story  has  been 
revived.  It  would  be  curious  to  see  if  it  can  be 
traced  back  further  than  Sydney  Smith. 

From  the  lecture  on  Habit,  I  cull  this  pleasing 
anecdote :  — 

"  The  famous  Isaac  Barrow,  the  mathematician  and  divine, 
had  an  habitual  dislike  of  dogs,  and  it  proceeded  from  the 
following  cause  :  —  He  was  a  very  early  riser  ;  and  one  morn- 
ing, as  he  was  walking  in  the  garden  of  a  friend's  house,  with 
whom  he  was  staying,  a  fierce  mastiff,  that  used  to  be  chained 
all  day,  and  let  loose  all  night,  for  the  security  of  the  house, 
set  upon  him  with  the  greatest  fury.  The  doctor  caught 
him  by  the  throat,  threw  him,  and  lay  upon  him ;  and,  whilst 
he  kept  him  down,  considered  what  he  should  do  in  that 
exigence.  The  account  the  doctor  gave  of  it  to  his  friends 
was,  that  he  had  once  a  mind  to  have  killed  the  dog ;  but  he 
altered  his  resolution  upon  recollecting  that  it  would  be 
unjust,  since  the  dog  only  did  his  duty,  and  he  himself  was 
to  blame  for  rambling  out  so  early.  At  length  he  called  out 
so  loud,  that  he  was  heard  by  some  in  the  house,  who  came 
out,  and  sj^eedily  separated  the  mastiff  and  the  mathematician. 
However,  it  is  added,  that  the  adventure  gave  the  doctor  a 
strong  habitual  aversion  for  dogs ;  and  I  dare  say,  if  the  truth 
were  known,  fixed  in  the  dog's  mind  a  still  stronger  aversion 
to  doctors." 

This  last  sentence  is  in  exactly  the  same  vein  of 
humour  as  the  comment,  in  the  review  of  Waterton's 
Travels,^  on  the  snake  that  bit  itself.  "  Mr.  Waterton, 
though  much  given  to  sentiment,  made  a  Labairi  snake 
bite  itself,  but  no  bad  consequences  ensued  —  nor  would 

1  See  p.  185. 


n.]  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  39 

any  bad  consequences  ensue,  if  a  court-martial  was  to 
order  a  sinful  soldier  to  give  himself  a  thousand  lashes. 
It  is  barely  possible  that  the  snake  had  some  faint 
idea  whom  and  what  he  was  biting." 

The  house  which  was  furnished  with  the  prodiicts 
of  this  Moral  Philosophy  was  No.  18  Orchard  Street, 
Portman  Square,  and  here  the  Smiths  lived  till  they 
left  London  for  a  rural  parish.  Meanwhile,  the 
excellent  Bernard  had  secured  some  clerical  employ- 
ment for  his  friend.  Through  his  influence  the 
Rev.  Sydney  Smith  was  elected  ''alternate  Evening 
Preacher  at  the  Foundling  Hospital,"  on  the  27th  of 
March  1805.  He  tried  to  open  a  Proprietary  Chapel 
on  his  own  account,  but  was  foiled  by  the  obstinacy 
of  the  Rector  in  whose  parish  it  was  situate.^  He 
was  appointed  Morning  Preacher  at  Berkeley  Chapel, 
Mayfair,  and  combined  his  duties  there  with  similar 
duties  at  Fitzroy  Chapel,  now  St.  Saviour's  Church, 
Fitzroy  Square.  ^  These  various  appointments,  coupled 
with  his  lectures  at  the  Royal  Institution,  brought 
him  increasingly  into  public  notice.     His  preaching 


1  See  his  Essay  on  "Toleration"  : — "A  chapel  helonging  to 
the  Swedenborgians,  or  Methodists  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  was 
offered,  two  or  three  years  since,  in  London,  to  a  clergyman  of 
the  Establishment.  The  proprietor  was  tired  of  his  irrational  ten- 
ants, and  wished  for  better  doctrine.  The  rector,  with  every 
possible  compliment  to  the  fitness  of  the  person  in  question, 
positively  refused  the  application  ;  and  the  church  remains  in 
the  hands  of  Methodists." 

2  Sir  David  Wilkie  (1785-18il)  wrote  in  1808  :  -  "  To  church, 
where  I  heard  Sydney  Smith  preach  a  sermon,  which,  for  its  elo- 
quence and  power  of  reasoning,  exceeded  anything  I  had  ever 
heard.  The  subject  was  the  Conversion  of  St.  Paul,  of  which  he 
proved  the  authenticity,  in  opposition  to  all  the  objections  and 
doubts  of  infidelity." 


40  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

was  admired  by  some  important  people.  His  contribu- 
tions to  tlie  Edinburgh,  so  entirely  unlike  anything 
else  in  periodical  literature,  were  eagerly  anticipated 
and  keenly  canvassed.  It  was  reported  that  King 
George  iii.  had  read  them,  and  had  said,  "  He  is  a 
very  clever  fellow,  but  he  will  never  be  a  bishop." 
His  social  gifts  won  him  friends  wherever  he  went ; 
and  Lord  and  Lady  Holland,  though  themselves  not 
addicted  to  the  public  observances  of  religion,  were 
anxious  to  promote  his  professional  advancement ;  but 
this  was  not  easy.  ''  From  the  beginning  of  the 
century,"  he  wrote,  "  to  the  death  of  Lord  Liverpool, 
was  an  awful  period  for  those  who  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  entertain  Liberal  opinions,  and  were  too 
honest  to  sell  them  for  the  ermine  of  the  judge  or 
the  lawn  of  the  prelate  —  a  long  and  hopeless  career 
in  your  profession,  the  chuckling  grin  of  noodles, 
the  sarcastic  leer  of  the  genuine  political  rogue  — 
prebendaries,  deans,  and  bishops  made  over  your 
head  —  reverend  renegadoes  advanced  to  the  highest 
dignities  of  the  Church,  for  helping  to  rivet  the 
fetters  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  dissenters,  and  no 
more  chance  of  a  Whig  administration  than  of  a  thaw 
in  Zembla." 

But  this  gloomy  period  of  oppression  and  exclusion 
was  broken  by  a  transient  gleam.  Pitt  died  on  the 
23rd  of  January  1806,  and  Lord  Grenville^  succeeded 
him,  at  the  head  of  the  ministry  of  "  All  the  Talents." 
In  this  place,  perhaps,  may  be  not  unsuitably  inserted 
the  epitaph  which  Sydney  Smith  suggested  for  Pitt's 
statue  in  Hanover  Square. 

1  William  Wyndham  Grenville  (1759-1834) ,  created  Lord  Gran- 
ville iu  17[lO. 


II.]  PREFERMENT  li 

To  the  Right  Honourable  William  Pitt 
AVhose  errors  in  foreign  policy 
And  lavish  expenditure  of  oiir  Resources  at  home 
Have  laid  the  foundation  of  National  Bankruptcy 
And  scattered  the  seeds  of  Revolution, 

This  Monument  was  erected  . 

By  many  weak  men,  who  mistook  his  eloquence  for  wisdom 

And  his  insolence  for  magnanimity, 

By  many  unworthy  men  whom  he  had  ennobled. 

And  by  many  base  men,  whom  he  had  enriched  at  the  Public 

Expense. 

But  for  Englishmen 

This  Statue  raised  from  such  motives 

Has  not  been  erected  in  vain. 

They  learn  from  it  those  dreadful  abuses 

Which  exist  iinder  the  mockery 

Of  a  free  Representation, 

And  feel  the  deep  necessity 

Of  a  great  and  efficient  Reform. 

In  Lord  Grenville's  ministry  Lord  Erskine  became 
Lord  Chancellor,  and  Lord  Holland  Lord  Privy  Seal. 
In  the  autumn  of  1806  the  living  of  Foston-le-Clay, 
eight  miles  from  York,  fell  vacant.  It  was  in  the 
Chancellor's  gift ;  the  Lord  Privy  Seal  said  a  word 
to  his  colleague;  the  Chancellor  cordially  accepted 
"  the  nominee  of  Lord  and  Lady  Holland  " ;  and  that 
nominee  was  Sydney  Smith.  Foston  was  worth  £500 
a  year,  and  Dr.  Markham,  Archbishop  of  York, 
allowed  the  new  Eector  to  be  non-resident,  accepting 
his  duties  at  the  Foundling  Hospital  as  a  sufficient 
justification  for  absence  from  his  parish.  Early  in 
1807  he  preached  at  the  Temple  Church,  and 
published  by  request,  a  sermon  on  Toleration,  which 
drew  this  testimony  from  a  scandalized  peer  ^ :  — 

1  Morton  Eden  (1751-1830),  created  Lord  Henley  in  1799. 


42  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

"  Sydney  Smith  preached  yesterday  a  sermon  on  the 
Catholic  question.  ...  It  would  have  made  an  admirable 
party  speech  in  Parliament,  but  as  a  sermon,  the  author 
deserved  the  Star  Chamber,  if  it  still  existed." 

During  the  summer  of  1807,  the  Smiths  lived  in  a 
hired  house  at  Sonning  on  the  Thames;  and  one  of 
their  neighbours  was  the  great  civilian  Sir  William 
Scott,^  afterwards  Lord  Stowell  (who  deserves  to  be 
honoured  for  having  coined  the  phrase  —  "The  elegant 
simplicity  of  the  Three  per  cents").  The  old  judge 
took  a  fancy  to  the  young  clergyman,  and  pointed  out, 
in  a  friendly  spirit,  how  much  lie  had  lost  by  his 
devotion  to  Whiggism.  In  later  life,  Sydney  Smith 
wrote  to  Lord  John  Russell-  —  ''I  remember  with 
pleasure,  thirty  years  ago,  old  Lord  Stowell  saying 
to  me,  '  Mr.  Smith,  you  would  have  been  a  much 
richer  man  if  you  had  joined  us.'" 

But  the  Tory  table-talk  of  Earley  ^  was  powerless 
to  seduce  this  staunch  partisan  from  his  political 
allegiance ;  and,  just  at  this  period,  he  was  meditating 
the  most  skilful  and  the  most  resounding  blow  which 
he  ever  struck  for  freedom  and  justice. 

It  was  a  critical  time.  The  besotted  resistance  of 
the  King  to  the  slightest  concession  in  favour  of  his 
Roman  Catholic  subjects  had  driven  the  ministry  of 
"  All  the  Talents  "  out  of  office  in  the  spring.  The 
High  Tories  succeeded  them,  and  the  General  Election 
which  ensued  on  the  change  of  government  gave  a 
strong  majority  for  "  No  Popery  "  and  reaction.    Mean- 

1  (1745-1836),  created  Lord  Stowell  in  1821. 

2  (1792-1878). 

8  A  house  which  Lord  Stowell  acquired  by  his  marriage  with  an 
heiress,  Anna  Maria  BagnaU. 


II.]  PKEFERMENT  43 

while  the  greatest  genius  that  the  world  has  ever  seen 
was  wading  through  slaughter  to  a  universal  throne, 
and  no  effective  resistance  had  as  yet  been  offered  to 
a  progress  which  menaced  the  freedom  of  Europe  and 
the  existence  of  its  states.  At  such  a  juncture  it 
seemed  to  Sydney  Smith  that  England  could  not 
spare  a  single  soldier  or  sailor,  nor  afford  to  alienate 
the  loyalty  of  a  single  citizen.  "Buonaparte,"  he 
wrote,  "  is  as  rapid  and  as  terrible  as  the  lightning 
of  God;  would  he  were  as  transient."  It  was  nothing 
short  of  national  suicide  to  reject  men  desirous  of 
serving  in  the  army  and  navy  on  account  of  their 
beliefs,  to  madden  English  Romanists  by  defraud- 
ing them  of  their  civil  rights,  and  to  outrage  the 
whole  people  of  Ireland  by  affixing  a  legal  stigma  to 
their  religion. 
His  musings  on  this  pregnant  theme  took  shape  in — 

A  LETTER 

ON 

THE  SUBJECT 

OF 

THE   CATHOLICS 

TO 

MY  BROTHER  ABRAHAM 

WHO 

LIVES  IN  THE   COUNTRY 
By  PETER  PLYMLEY. 

This  Letter  was  published  in  the  summer  of  1807,  and 
"  its  effect  was  like  a  spark  ou  a  heap  of  gunpowder." 
It  was  followed  by  nine  more,  bearing  the  same  title, 
four  of  which  appeared  in  the  same  year  and  five  in 


44  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap.  ii. 

the  next.  A  little  later  Sydney  Smith  wrote  to  Lord 
Grey  —  "I  wish  I  covild  write  as  well  as  Plymley : 
but,  if  I  could,  where  is  such  a  case  to  be  found? 
When  had  any  lawyer  such  a  brief?" 

In  1808  Peter  Plymleijs  Letters  were  collected  and 
published  in  a  pamphlet,  and  the  pamphlet  ran  through 
sixteen  editions.  ''  The  government  of  that  day,"  wrote 
Sydney  Smith  in  1839,  "  took  great  pains  to  find  out 
the  author ;  all  that  they  could  find  out  was  that  they 
were  brought  to  Mr.  Budd,  the  publisher,  by  the  Earl 
of  Lauderdale.^  Somehow  or  another  it  came  to  be 
conjectured  that  I  was  the  author.-  .  .  .  They  had  an 
immense  circulation  at  the  time,  and  I  think  above 
twenty  thousand  copies  were  sold."  Some  little  space 
must  be  bestowed  upon  these  masterpieces  of  humour 
and  wisdom. 

1  James,  8th  Earl  of  Lauderdale  (1759-1839). 

2  Byron,  in  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Revieivers,  attributes  the 
authorship  of  Peter  Plymley  to  "Smug  Sydney."  See  also  his 
allusion  to  "  Peter  Pith  "  in  Don  Juan,  canto  xvi. 


CHAPTER  III 

PETER    PLYMLEY 

Peter  Plymlei/s  Letters  are  supposed  to  be  written 
by  a  Londoner,  who  is  in  favour  of  removing  the 
secular  disabilities  of  Roman  Catholics,  to  his  brother 
Abraham,  the  parson  of  a  rural  parish.  They  proceed 
throughout  on  the  assumption  that  the  parson  is  a 
kind-hearted,  honest,  and  conscientious  man;  but 
rather  stupid,  grossly  ignorant  of  public  affairs,  and 
frightened  to  death  by  a  bogy  of  his  own  imagining. 
That  bogy  is  the  idea  of  a  Popish  conspiracy  against 
the  crown,  church,  and  commonwealth.  Abraham 
communicates  his  alarms  to  his  brother  Peter  in 
London,  and  Peter's  Letters  are  replies  to  these  out- 
pourings. 

Letter  I.  begins  by  assuring  Abraham  that  there  is 
no  truth  in  the  rumour  that  the  Pope  has  landed  on 
English  soil,  and  has  been  housed  by  the  Spencers  or 
the  Hollands  or  the  Grenvilles.  "  The  best-informed 
clergy  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  metropolis  are 
convinced  that  the  rumour  is  without  foundation." 
Having  set  this  fear  at  rest,  Peter  deals  with  Abra- 
ham's argument. — 

"You  say  that  the  Roman  Catholics  interpret  the  Scriptures 
in  an  unorthodox  manner.  Very  likely.  .  .  .  But  I  want 
soldiers  and  sailors  for  the  state ;  I  want  to  make  a  greater 

45 


46  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

use  than  I  now  can  do  of  a  poor  country  full  of  men  ;  I  want 
to  render  the  military  service  popular  among  the  Irish ;  to 
check  the  power  of  Fi-ance;  to  make  every  possible  exertion 
for  the  safety  of  Europe,  which  in  twenty  years'  time  will  be 
nothing  but  a  mass  of  French  slaves :  and  then  you,  and  ten 
thousand  other  such  boobies  as  you,  call  out  — '  For  God's 
sake,  do  not  think  of  raising  cavalry  and  infantry  in  Ireland ! 
They  interpret  the  Epistle  to  Timothy  in  a  different  manner 
from  what  we  do.  .  .  .'  AVhat !  when  Turk,  Jew,  Heretic, 
Infidel,  Catholic,  Protestant,  are  all  combined  against  this 
country;  when  men  of  every  religious  persuasion,  and  no 
religious  persuasion,  when  the  population  of  half  the  globe,  is 
lip  in  arms  against  us;  are  we  to  stand  examining  our  generals 
and  armies  as  a  bishop  examines  candidates  for  holy  orders  ? 
and  to  suffer  no  one  to  bleed  for  England  who  does  not  agree 
with  you  about  the  Second  of  Timothy  ?  " 

And  then  Peter  disclaims  the  reproach  of  unfriend- 
liness to  the  Established  Church. — 

"  I  love  the  Church  as  well  as  you  do ;  but  you  totally 
mistake  the  nature  of  an  Establishment,  when  you  contend 
that  it  ought  to  be  connected  with  the  military  and  civil 
careers  of  every  individual  in  the  state.  It  is  quite  right 
that  there  should  be  one  clergyman  in  every  parish  interpret- 
ing the  Scriptures  after  a  particular  manner,  ruled  by  a 
regular  hierarchy,  and  paid  with  a  rich  proportion  of  haycocks 
and  wheat  sheaves.  When  I  have  laid  this  foundation  for  a 
nation  al  religion  in  the  state — when  I  have  placed  ten  thousand 
well-educated  men  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom  to  preach 
it  up,  and  compelled  every  one  to  pay  them,  whether  they 
hear  them  or  not  —  I  have  taken  such  measures  as  I  know 
must  always  procure  an  immense  majority  in  favour  of  the 
Established  Church;  but  I  can  go  no  farther.  I  cannot  set 
up  a  civil  inquisition,  and  say  to  one  — '  You  shall  not  be  a 
butcher,  because  you  are  not  orthodox' ;  and  prohibit  another 
from  brewing,  and  a  third  from  administering  the  law,  and  a 
fourth  from  defending  the  country.  If  common  justice  did 
not  prohibit  me  from  such  a  conduct,  common  sense  would." 


III.]  PETER  PLYMLEY  47 

Persecution,  Peter  goes  on  to  say,  makes  martyrs. 
Fanatics  delight  in  the  feeling  that  they  are  persecuted 
for  righteousness'  sake  ;  and,  the  more  they  are  harried, 
the  more  tenaciously  they  cling  to  their  misbeliefs. 

"  This  is  just  the  effect  your  disqualifying  laws  have 
produced.  They  have  fed  Dr.  Rees  and  Dr.  Kippis  ;  ^  crowded 
the congi-egation  of  the  Old  Jewry  ^  to  suffocation ;  andenabled 
every  sublapsarian,  and  supralapsarian,  and  seniipelagian, 
clergyman  to  build  himself  a  neat  brick  chapel,  and  live  with 
some  distant  resemblance  to  the  state  of  a  gentleman." 

But,  says  Abraham,  the  King  is  bound  by  his  Coro- 
nation Oath  to  resist  the  emancipation  of  the  Roman 
Catholics.     Peter  replies  — 

"  Suppose  Bonaparte  were  to  retrieve  the  only  very  great 
blunder  he  has  made,  and  were  to  succeed,  after  repeated 
trials,  in  making  an  impression  upon  Ireland,  do  you  think 
we  should  hear  anything  of  the  impediment  of  a  Coronation 
Oath?  or  would  the  spirit  of  this  country  tolerate  for  an  hour 
such  ministers  and  such  unheard-of  nonsense,  if  the  most 
distant  prospect  existed  of  conciliating  the  Catholics  by  every 
species  even  of  the  most  abject  concession  ?  And  yet,  if  your 
argument  is  good  for  anything,  the  Coronation  Oath  ought  to 
reject,  at  such  a  moment,  every  tendency  to  conciliation,  and 
to  bind  Ireland  for  ever  to  the  Crown  of  France." 

After  a  cursory  reference  to  Abraham's  fears  about 
Popish  fires  and  faggots,  and  a  reminder  that  ''  there 
were  as  many  persons  put  to  death  for  religious  opin- 
ions under  the  mild  Elizabeth  as  under  the  bloody 
Mary,"  Peter  concludes  with  these  vigorous  sentences — 

"  You  tell  me  I  am  a  party  man.    I  ho^^e  I  shall  always  be 

1  Abraham  Rees,  D.D.  (1743-1825),  and  Andrew  Kippis,  D.D. 
(1723-1795),  were  Presbyterian  nainisters  of  great  repute. 

2  The  meeting-house  in  Old  Jewry  was  built  in  1701  and  destroyed 
in  1808.  It  "  covered  2(500  square  feet,  and  was  lit  with  six  bow 
windows."    Dr.  Rees  was  its  last  minister. 


48  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

so,  when  I  see  my  country  in  the  hands  of  a  pert  London 
joker  1  and  a  second-rate  lawyer.^  Of  the  first,  no  other 
good  is  known  than  that  he  makes  pretty  Latin  verses ;  the 
second  seems  to  me  to  have  the  head  of  a  country  parson  and 
the  tongue  of  an  Old  Bailey  barrister.  If  I  could  see  good 
measures  pursued,  I  care  not  who  is  in  power ;  but  I  have  a 
passionate  love  for  common  justice  and  for  common  sense,  and 
I  aVjhor  and  despise  every  man  who  builds  up  his  political 
fortune  upon  their  ruin." 

Abraham's  next  objection  to  emancipation  appears 
to  liave  been  that  a  Roman  Catholic  will  not  respect 
an  oath.  "  Why  not  ? "  asks  Peter  in  Letter  II. 
"What  upon  earth  has  kept  him  out  of  Parliament,  or 
excluded  him  from  all  the  offices  whence  he  is  excluded, 
but  his  respect  for  oaths  ?  There  is  no  law  which  pro- 
hibits a  Catholic  to  sit  in  Parliament.  There  could 
be  no  such  law ;  because  it  is  impossible  to  find  out 
what  passes  in  the  interior  of  any  man's  mind.  .  .  . 
The  Catholic  is  excluded  from  Parliament  because  he 
will  not  swear  that  he  disbelieves  the  leading  doctrines 
of  his  religion.  The  Catholic  asks  you  to  abolish 
some  oaths  which  oppress  him ;  your  answer  is,  that 
he  does  not  respect  oaths.  Then  why  subject  him  to 
the  test  of  oaths  ?  The  oaths  keep  him  out  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  why,  then  he  respects  them.  Turn  which  way 
you  will,  either  your  laws  are  nugatory,  or  the  Catholic 
is  bound  by  religious  obligations  as  you  are." 

Prom  Roman  Catholics  in  general,  Peter  now  turns 
to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland.  — 

"  The  moment  the  very  name  of  Ireland  is  mentioned,  the 
English  seem  to  bid  adieu  to  common  feeling,  common 
prudence,  and  common  sense,  and  to  act  with  the  barbarity  of 


1  George  Canning  (1770-1827). 

2  Spencer  Perceval  (17G2-1812). 


in.]  PETER  PLYMLEY  49 

tyrants  and  the  fatuity  of  idiots.  Whatever  your  opinion  may 
be  of  the  follies  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  remember 
they  are  the  follies  of  four  millions  of  human  beings,  increas- 
ing rapidly  in  numbers,  wealth  and  intelligence,  who,  if  firmly 
united  with  this  country,  would  set  at  defiance  the  power  of 
France,  and,  if  once  wrested  from  their  alliance  with  England, 
would  in  three  years  render  its  existence  as  an  independent 
nation  absolutely  impossible.  You  speak  of  danger  to  the 
Establishment ;  I  request  to  know  when  the  Establishment 
was  ever  so  much  in  danger  as  when  Hoche  was  in  Bantry 
Bay,  and  whether  all  the  books  of  Bossuet,  or  the  arts  of  the 
Jesuits,  were  half  so  terrible?  .  .  .  Whatever  you  think  of 
the  Catholics,  there  they  are  —  you  cannot  get  rid  of  them. 
Your  alternative  is  to  give  them  a  lawful  place  for  stating 
their  grievances,  or  an  unlawful  one.  If  you  do  not  admit 
them  to  the  House  of  Commons,  they  will  hold  their  Parlia- 
ment in  Potatoe  Place,  Dublin,  and  be  ten  times  as  violent 
and  inflammatory  as  they  would  be  in  Westminster.  Nothing 
would  give  me  such  an  idea  of  security  as  to  see  twenty  or 
thirty  Catholic  gentlemen  in  Parliament,  looked  upon  by  all 
the  Catholics  as  the  fair  and  proper  organ  of  their  party.  I 
should  have  thought  it  the  height  of  good  fortune  that  such 
a  wisli  existed  on  their  part,  and  the  very  essence  of  madness 
and  ignorance  to  reject  it." 

A  noble  lord  —  his  name  unluckily  Las  perished  — 
had  attempted  to  salve  liis  own  conscience  and  that  of 
his  colleagues  in  hostility  to  the  Roman  claims,  by 
affirming  that  exclusion  from  civil  office  was  not  per- 
secution ;  and  Peter  handles  him  with  delighted 
vigour,  in  a  passage  which,  more  than  eighty  years 
later,  was  quoted  with  enthusiasm  by  Mr.  Gladstone.^  — 

"  A  distinction,  I  perceive,  is  taken  by  one  of  the  most 
feeble  noblemen  in  Great  Britain,  between  persecution  and 
the  deprivation  of  political  power;  whereas  there  is  no  more 

1  When  it  was  proposed  to  exclude  King's  College  from  the  re- 
constituted University  of  London. 


50  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

distinction  between  these  two  things  than  there  is  between 
him  who  makes  the  distinction  and  a  booby.  If  I  strip  off 
the  relic-covered  jacket  of  a  Catliolic  and  give  him  twenty 
stripes,  I  persecute.  If  I  say, '  Everybody  in  the  town  where 
you  live  shall  be  a  candidate  for  lucrative  and  honourable 
offices  but  you,  who  are  a  Catholic,'  I  do  not  persecute ! 
What  barbarous  nonsense  is  this  I  As  if  degradation  was 
not  as  great  an  evil  as  bodily  pain,  or  as  severe  poverty ;  as 
if  I  could  not  be  as  great  a  tyrant  by  saying,  '  You  sh  all  not 
enjoy,'  as  by  saying,  '  You  shall  suffer.'  .  .  .  You  may  not 
be  aware  of  it,  most  reverend  Abraham,  but  you  deny  their 
freedom  to  the  Catholics  upon  the  same  principle  that  Sarah 
your  wife  refuses  to  give  the  receipt  for  a  ham  or  a  goose- 
berry dumpling.  She  values  her  receipts,  not  because  they 
secure  to  her  a  certain  flavour,  but  because  they  remind  her 
that  her  neighbours  want  it  —  a  feeling  laughable  in  a  priestess, 
shameful  in  a  priest ;  venial  when  it  withholds  the  blessings 
of  a  ham,  tyrannical  and  execrable  when  it  narrows  the  boon 
of  religious  freedom." 

Letter  III.  gives  utterance  to  a  genuine  alarm 
inspired  by  Bonaparte's  uninterrupted  progress. 
England  is  confronted  by  the  most  formidable  ad- 
versary whom  she  has  ever  known,  and  her  defence 
is  entrusted  to  Canning  and  Perceval,  Canning's 
armoury  contains  nothing  more  serviceable  than 
"  schoolboy  jokes  and  doggerel  rhymes,  an  affronting 
petulance,  and  the  tones  and  gesticulations  of  Mr. 
Pitt."  Perceval,  instead  of  looking  after  the  national 
defences, 

*'  will  bestow  the  strictest  attention  on  the  smaller  parts  of 
ecclesiastical  government.  In  the  last  agonies  of  England  he 
will  bring  in  a  bill  to  regulate  Easter  offerings  ;  and  he  will 
adjust  the  stipends  of  curates,  when  the  flag  of  France  is 
unfurled  on  the  hills  of  Kent.^  .  .  .  Whatever  can  be  done 

1  Spencer  Perceval  brought  in  several  bi]ls  to  compel  non- 
resident iucumbeuts  to  pay  their  curates  a  living  wage. 


III.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  51 

by  very  mistaken  notions  of  the  piety  of  a  Christian,  and  by 
very  wretched  imitations  of  the  eloquence  of  Mr.  Pitt,  will 
be  done  by  these  two  gentlemen  "  ; 

but  these  are  no  adequate  defences  against  the  genius 
and  ambition  of  Bonaparte.  ''  There  is  nothing  to 
oppose  to  the  conqueror  of  the  workl  but  a  small  table- 
wit,  and  the  sallow  Surveyor  of  the  Meltings."  ^ 

Abraham,  terrified  by  those  prognostics,  asks  Peter 
if  he  thinks  it  possible  for  England  to  survive  the 
recent  misfortunes  of  Europe.  Peter  replies  that  if 
Bonaparte  lives,  and  a  great  deal  is  not  immediately 
conceded  to  the  Roman  Catholics,  England  must  per- 
ish, and  perish  in  disgrace.  — 

"  It  is  doubly  miserable  to  become  slaves  abroad,  because 
we  would  be  tyrants  at  home ;  and  to  perish  because  we 
have  raised  up  worse  enemies  within,  from  our  own  bigotry, 
than  we  are  exposed  to  without  from  the  unprincipled  ambi- 
tion of  France." 

Then  he  goes  on  to  a  famous  apologue.  England  is 
a  frigate,  attacked  by  a  corsair  of  immense  strength 
and  size.  The  rigging  is  cut,  there  is  water  in  the 
hold,  men  are  dropping  off  very  fast,  the  peril  is 
extreme.  How  do  you  think  the  captain  (whom  we 
will  call  Perceval)  acts?  Does  he  call  all  hands  on 
deck  and  talk  to  them  of  king,  country,  glory,  sweet- 
hearts, gin,  French  prisons,  wooden  shoes,  old  England, 
and  hearts  of  oak  —  till  they  give  three  cheers,  rush  to 
their  guns,  and,  after  a  tremendous  conflict,  succeed  in 
beating  off  the  enemy  ?  — 

"  Not  a  syllable  of  all  this :  this  is  not  the  manner  in 
which  the  honourable  commander  goes  to  work.     The  first 

1  Spencer  Perceval  obtained  the  sinecure  office  of  Surveyor  of 
the  Meltings  and  Clerk  of  the  Irons  in  1791. 


52  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

thing  he  does  is  to  secure  twenty  or  thirty  of  his  prime 
sailors  who  happen  to  be  Catholics,  to  clap  thein  in  irons, 
and  set  over  them  a  guard  of  as  many  Protestants.  Having 
taken  this  admirable  method  of  defending  himself  against 
his  infidel  opponents,  he  goes  upon  deck,  reminds  the  sailors, 
in  a  very  bitter  harangue,  that  they  are  of  different  religions ; 
exhorts  the  Episcopal  gunner  not  to  trust  to  the  Presbyterian 
quartermaster,  issues  positive  orders  that  the  Catholics  should 
be  fired  at  upon  the  first  appearance  of  discontent ;  rushes 
through  blood  and  brains,  examining  his  men  in  the  Cate- 
chism and  XXXIX.  articles,  and  positively  forbids  every  one 
to  spunge  or  ram  who  has  not  taken  the  Sacrament  accord- 
ing to  the  Church  of  England.  .  .  .  Built  as  she  is  of  heart 
of  oak,  and  admirably  manned,  is  it  possible  with  such  a 
captain  to  save  this  ship  from  going  to  the  bottom  ?  " 

Abraham's  next  argument  against  a  policy  of  con- 
cession is  that  it  would  only  lead  to  further  demands 
in  the  future.  In  reply  to  this  Peter  makes  vigorous 
use  of  Spencer  Perceval's  official  career.  Perceval  had 
held  a  sinecure  for  several  years ;  at  the  time  of 
writing  he  was  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer ;  and  he 
had  just  attempted,  and  been  defeated  in  attempting, 
a  most  nefarious  job,  by  which  the  revenues  of  the 
Duchy  of  Lancaster  were  to  have  been  secured  to  him 
for  life. 

"  Suppose  the  person  to  whom  he  applied  for  the  Meltings 
had  withstood  every  plea  of  wife  and  fourteen  children,  no 
business,  and  good  character,  and  had  refused  him  this  paltry 
little  ofiice,  because  he  might  hereafter  attempt  to  get  hold  of 
the  revenues  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  for  life ;  would  not 
Mr.  Perceval  have  contended  eagerly  against  the  injustice 
of  refusing  moderate  requests,  because  immoderate  ones 
may  hereafter  be  made  ?  Would  he  not  have  said  (and  said 
truly), '  Leave  such  exorbitant  attempts  as  these  to  the  general 
indignation  of  the  Commons,  who  will  take  care  to  defeat 


III.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  53 

them  when  they  do  occur ;  but  do  not  refuse  me  the  Irons  and 
the  Meltings  now,  because  I  may  totally  lose  sight  of  all 
moderation  hereafter '  ?  " 

Letter  IV.  begins  with  a  reply  to  tliose  who  con- 
tended that  England  ought  not  to  pay  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  in  Ireland. 

"  The  whole  sum  now  appropriated  by  Government  to  the 
religious  education  of  four  millions  of  Christians  is  £13,000 
—  a  sum  about  one  hundred  times  as  large  being  appropriated 
in  the  same  country  to  about  one-eighth  part  of  this  number  of 
Protestants.  When  it  was  proposed  to  raise  this  grant  from 
£8000  to  £13,000,  its  present  amount,  this  sum  was  objected 
to  by  that  most  indulgent  of  Christians,  Mr.  Spencer  Perceval, 
as  enormous;  he  himself  having  secured  for  his  own  eating 
and  drinking,  and  the  eating  and  drinking  of  the  Master  and 
Miss  Percevals,  the  reversionary  sum  of  £21,000  a  year  of  the 
public  money,^  and  having  just  failed  in  a  desperate  and 
rapacious  attempt  to  secure  to  himself  for  life  the  revenues  of 
the  Duchy  of  Lancaster ;  and  the  best  of  it  is,  that  this 
Minister,  after  abusing  his  predecessors  for  their  impious 
bounty  to  the  Catholics,  has  found  himself  compelled,  from 
the  apprehension  of  immediate  danger,  to  grant  the  sum  in 
question." 

Abraham  now  goes  on  to  plead  that  our  present 
relations  with  the  Roman  Catholics  date  from  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  and  that  laws  passed  at  that 
period  are  unalterable.     To  this  Peter  replies :  — 

"  "When  I  hear  any  man  talk  of  an  unalterable  law,  the 
only  effect  it  produces  upon  me  is  to  convince  me  that  he 
is  an  unalterable  fool.  .  .  .  Besides,  it  happens  that,  to  the 
principal  incai^acities  under  which  the  Irish  suffer,  they  were 


1  Spencer  Perceval  procured  the  reversion  of  his  brother's  office 
of  Registrar  to  the  Court  of  Admiralty,  and  burked  a  parliamentary 
inquiry  into  reversions  generally- 


64  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

subjected  after  that  great  and  glorious  Revolution,  to  which 
we  are  indebted  for  so  many  blessings.  .  .  .  The  Catholics 
were  not  excluded  from  the  Irish  House  of  Commons,  or 
military  commands,  before  the  3rd  and  4th  of  William  and 
Mary,  and  the  1st  and  2nd  of  Queen  Anne." 

Then  he  goes  on  to  cite  the  example  of  Scotland. 
There  the  English  government  had,  in  times  past, 
tried  to  force  the  national  conscience  in  matters  of 
faith  and  worship.  The  government  had  failed,  as 
it  deserved  to  fail,  for  Scotland  was  resolute  and 
rebellious.  Then  "the  true  and  only  remedy  was 
applied.  The  Scotch  were  suffered  to  worship  God 
after  their  own  tiresome  manner,  without  pain,  penalty, 
and  privation."  And  Scotland  had  become  a  contented, 
loyal,  and  profitable  part  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
Exactly  the  reverse  was  happening  in  Ireland.  A 
vehement  hostility  to  the  Union  was  spreading  through 
all  parts  of  the  country  and  all  classes  of  the  people. 

"  The  Irish  see  that  their  national  independence  is  gone, 
without  having  recovered  any  single  one  of  those  advantages 
which  they  were  taught  to  expect  from  the  sacrifice.  All 
good  things  were  to  flow  from  the  Union ;  they  have  none 
of  them  gained  anything.  Every  man's  pride  is  wounded 
by  it;  no  man's  interest  is  promoted.  In  the  seventh  year 
of  that  Union,  four  million  Catholics,  lured  by  all  kinds  of 
promises  to  yield  up  the  separate  dignity  and  sovereignty 
of  their  country,  are  forced  to  squabble  with  such  a  man  as 
Mr.  Spencer  Perceval  for  five  thousand  pounds  with  which 
to  educate  their  children  in  their  own  mode  of  worship ;  he, 
the  same  J\Ir.  Spencer,  having  secured  to  his  own  Protestant 
self  a  reversionary  portion  of  the  public  money  amounting  to 
four  times  that  sum.  .  .  .  Our  conduct  to  Ireland,  during 
the  whole  of  this  war,  has  been  that  of  a  man  who  subscribes 
to  hospitals,  weeps  at  charity-sermons,  carries  out  broth  and 
blankets  to  beggars,  and  then  comes  home  and  beats  his 


III.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  55 

wife  and  children.    We  have  compassion  for  the  victims  of 
all  other  oppression  and  injustice,  except  our  own." 

It  is  of  no  use  for  statesmen  to  ignore  the  Irish 
question.  It  is  much  too  urgent  and  too  dangerous 
a  topic  to  be  long  suppressed. — 

"  A  man  may  command  his  family  to  say  nothing  more 
about  the  stone,  and  surgical  operations;  but  the  ponderous 
malice  still  lies  upon  the  nerve,  and  gets  so  big  that  the 
patient  breaks  his  own  law  of  silence,  clamours  for  the  knife, 
and  expires  under  its  late  operation.  Believe  me,  you  talk 
folly  when  you  speak  of  suppressing  the  Irish  question.  I 
wish  to  God  that  the  case  admitted  of  such  a  remedy  .  .  . 
but,  if  the  wants  of  the  Catholics  are  not  heard  in  the  manly 
tones  of  Lord  Grenville,  or  the  servile  drawl  of  Lord  Castle- 
reagh,  they  will  be  heard  ere  long  in  the  madness  of  mobs, 
and  the  conflicts  of  armed  men." 

In  Letter  V.  Peter  turns  upon  Abraham,  who  cannot 
believe  that  England  will  ever  be  ruined  and  conquered, 
and  says :  — 

"  Alasl  so  reasoned,  in  their  time,  the  Austrian,  Russian, 
and  Prussian  Plymleys.  But  the  English  are  brave?  So 
were  all  these  nations.  You  might  get  together  an  hundred 
thousand  men  individually  brave;  but,  without  generals 
capable  of  commanding  such  a  machine,  it  would  be  as  useless 
as  a  first-rate  man-of-war  manned  by  Oxford  clergymen  or 
Parisian  shopkeepers.  I  do  not  say  this  to  the  disparagement 
of  English  officers:  they  have  had  no  means  of  acquiring 
experience.  But  I  do  say  it  to  create  alarm.  We  do  not 
appear  to  me  to  be  half  alarmed  enough,  or  to  entertain  that 
sense  of  our  danger  which  leads  to  the  most  obvious  means 
of  self-defence.  As  for  the  spirit  of  the  peasantry,  in  making 
a  gallant  defence  behind  hedgerows  and  through  plate-racks 
and  hencoops,  highly  as  I  think  of  their  bravery,  I  do  not 
know  any  nation  in  Europe  so  likely  to  be  striick  with  panic 
as  the  English ;  and  this  from  their  total  unacquaintance  with 
the  science  of  war.    Old  wheat  and  beans  blazing  for  twenty 


56  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

miles  round  —  cart-mai'es  shot  —  sows  of  Lord  Somerville's  ^ 
breed  running  wild  over  the  country  —  the  minister  of  the 
parish  wounded  sorely  in  his  hinder  parts  —  Mrs.  Plyinley  in 
fits  —  all  these  scenes  of  war  an  Austrian  or  a  Russian  has 
seen  three  or  four  times  over.  But  it  is  now  three  centuries 
since  an  English  pig  has  fallen  in  fair  battle  upon  English 
ground,  or  a  farm-house  been  rifled.  .  .  .  But  whatever  was 
our  conduct  —  if  every  ploughman  was  as  great  a  hero  as  he 
who  was  called  from  his  oxen  to  save  Rome  from  her  enemies 
—  I  should  still  say  that,  at  such  a  crisis,  you  want  the  affec- 
tions of  all  your  subjects  in  both  islands.  There  is  no  spirit 
which  you  must  alienate,  no  heart  you  must  avert.  Evei-y 
man  must  feel  he  has  a  country,  and  that  there  is  an  urgent 
and  pressing  cause  why  he  should  expose  himself  to  death." 

Altliough  Peter  is  so  seriously  concerned  about  the 
military  disasters  which  will  fall  on  England  unless 
she  behaves  more  wisely  to  her  Roman  Catholic  popu- 
lation, he  is  not  the  least  afraid  of  any  dangers 
arising  from  the  Roman  Catholic  religion.  England 
has  done  with  it,  once  for  all.  — 

"  Tell  me  that  the  world  will  return  again  under  the 
influence  of  the  smallpox;  that  Lord  Castlereagh  will  here- 
after oppose  the  power  of  the  court ;  that  Lord  Howick  and 
Mr.  Grattan  will  each  of  them  do  a  mean  and  dishonourable 
action ;  that  anybody  who  has  heard  Lord  Redesdale  speak 
will  knowingly  and  willingly  hear  him  again ;  that  Lord 
Eldon  has  assented  to  the  fact  of  two  and  two  making  four, 
without  shedding  tears,  or  expressing  the  smallest  doubt  or 
scruple ;  tell  me  any  other  thing  absurd  or  incredible,  but,  for 
the  love  of  common  sense,  let  me  hear  no  more  of  the  danger 
to  be  apprehended  from  the  general  diffusion  of  Popery.  It 
is  too  absurd  to  be  reasoned  upon ;  every  man  feels  it  is  non- 
sense when  he  hears  it  stated,  and  so  does  every  man  while 
he  is  stating  it." 

1  John  Southey,  15th  Lord  Somerville,  President  of  the  Board  of 
Agriculture. 


111.]  PETER  PLYMLEY  57 

No,  the  only  real  danger  which  Peter  sees  —  and 
this  he  sees  with  startling  clearness  —  is  that  Ireland 
will  be  absorbed  by  France,  and  will  welcome  her 
deliverance  from  England ;  that  the  civil  existence  of 
England  will  be  most  seriously  imperilled ;  and  that 
the  Irish  themselves  will,  in  the  long-run,  suffer 
grievously  by  the  change. — 

"Who  can  doubt  but  that  Ireland  will  experience  ulti- 
mately from  France  a  treatment  to  which  the  conduct  they 
have  experienced  from  England  is  the  love  of  a  parent  or  a 
brother?     Who  can  doubt  that,  five  years  after  he  has  got 
hold  of  the  country,  Ireland  will  be  tossed  by  Bonaparte  as 
a  present  to  some  one  of  his  ruffian  generals,  who  will  knock 
the  head  of  Mr.  Keogh  against  the  head  of  Cardinal  Troy, 
shoot  twenty  of  the  most  noisy  blockheads  of  the  Roman 
persuasion,  wash  his  pug-dogs  in  holy  water,  and  confiscate 
the  salt  butter  of  the  Milesian  Republic  to  the  last  tub  ?   But 
what  matters  this?  or  who  is  wise  enough  in  Ireland  to  heed 
it?  or  when  had  common  sense  much  influence  with  my  poor 
dear  Irish?    Mr.  Perceval  does  not  know  the  Irish;  but  I 
know  them,  and  1  know  that,  at  every  rash  and  mad  hazard, 
they  will  break  the  Union,  revenge  their  wounded  pride  and 
their  insulted  religion,  and  fling  themselves  into  the  open 
arms  of  France,  sure  of  dying  in  the  embrace.  ...  In  the  six 
hundredth  year  of  our  Empire  over  Ireland,  have  we  any 
memorial  of  ancient  kindness  to  refer  to  ?  any  people,  any  zeal, 
any  country,  on  which  we  can  depend  ?     Have  we  any  hope, 
but  in  the  winds  of  heaven  and  the  tides  of  the  sea?  any 
prayer  to  prefer  to  the  Irish,  but  that  they  should  forget  and 
forgive  their  oppressors,  who,  in  the  very  moment  that  they 
are  calling  upon  them  for  their  exertions,  solemnly  assure 
them  that  the  oppression  shall  still  remain  ?  " 

Letter  VI.  begins  with  one  of  those  vivacious 
apologues  in  which  Sydney  Smith  excelled.  Abraham 
Plymley  has  been  talking  of  the  concessions  which 
Roman   Catholics   have   already   received,  and   their 


58  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

shameless  ingratitude  in  asking  for  more.  To  the  cry 
of  ingratitude  Peter  thus  replies. — There  is  a  village, 
he  says,  in  which,  once  a  year,  the  inhabitants  sit 
down  to  a  dinner  provided  at  the  common  expense. 
A  hundred  years  ago  the  inhabitants  of  three  of  the 
streets  seized  the  inhabitants  of  the  fourth  street, 
bound  them  hand  and  foot,  laid  them  on  their  backs, 
and  compelled  them  to  look  on  while  the  majority 
were  stuffing  themselves  with  beef  and  beer  —  and  this, 
although  they  had  contributed  an  equal  quota  to  the 
expense.  Next  year  the  same  assault  was  perpetrated. 
It  soon  grew  into  a  custom ;  and,  as  years  went  on,  the 
village  came  to  look  on  the  annual  act  of  tyranny  as 
the  most  sacred  of  its  institutions.  Unfortunately, 
however,  for  the  tyrannical  majority,  the  inhabitants 
of  the  persecuted  street  increased  in  numbers,  deter- 
mination, and  public  spirit.  They  murmured,  protested, 
and  resisted,  till  the  oppressors,  "  more  afraid  of  injus- 
tice, were  now  disposed  to  be  just."  On  the  next  occasion 
of  the  annual  dinner,  the  victims  were  unbound.  The 
year  after,  they  were  allowed  to  sit  upright.  Then 
they  got  a  bit  of  bread  and  a  glass  of  water.  Finally, 
after  a  long  series  of  small  concessions,  they  grew  so 
bold  as  to  ask  that  they  might  sit  down  at  the  bottom 
of  the  table,  and  feast  with  their  grander  neighbours. 
Forthwith,  a  general  cry  of  shame  and  scandal.  — 

"  Ten  years  ago,  were  you  not  laid  upon  your  backs  ? 
Don't  you  remember  what  a  great  thing  you  thought  it  to  get 
a  piece  of  bread  ?  How  thankful  you  were  for  cheese-parings  ? 
Have  you  forgotten  that  memorable  asra,  when  the  lord  of  tlie 
manor  interfered  to  obtain  for  you  a  slice  of  the  public 
pudding?  And  now,  with  an  audacity  only  equalled  by  your 
ingratitude,  you  have  the  impudence  to  ask  for  knives  and 


in.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  59 

forks,  and  to  request,  in  terms  too  plain  to  be  mistaken,  that 
you  may  sit  down  to  table  with  the  rest,  and  be  indulged 
even  with  beef  and  beer.  There  are  not  more  than  half  a 
dozen  dishes  which  we  have  reserved  for  ourselves ;  the  rest 
has  been  thrown  open  to  you  in  the  utmost  profusion ;  you 
have  potatoes,  and  carrots,  suet  dumplings,  sops  in  the  pan, 
and  delicious  toast-and-water,  in  incredible  quantities.  Beef, 
mutton,  lamb,  pork,  and  veal  are  ours  ;  and,  if  you  were  not 
the  most  restless  and  dissatisfied  of  human  beings,  you  would 
never  think  of  aspiring  to  enjoy  them." 

Is  not  this,  says  Peter,  the  very  nonsense  and  the 
very  insult  which  you  daily  practise  on  the  Eonian 
Catholics  ?  I,  though  I  am  an  inhabitant  of  the  village 
and  live  in  one  of  the  three  favoured  streets,  have 
retained  some  sense  of  justice,  and  I  most  earnestly 
counsel  these  half-fed  claimants  to  persevere  in  their 
just  demands,  till  they  are  admitted  to  their  just 
share  of  a  dinner  for  which  they  pay  as  much  as  the 
others. 

"And,  if  they  see  a  little  attenuated  lawyer  ^  squabbling 
at  the  head  of  their  opponents,  let  them  desire  him  to  empty 
his  pockets,  and  to  pull  out  all  the  pieces  of  duck,  fowl,  and 
pudding  which  he  has  filched  from  the  public  feasts,  to  carry 
home  to  his  wife  and  children." 

Before  ending  his  letter,  Peter  has  a  fling  at  the 
Home  Secretary,  Lord  Hawkesbury,  "  the  lesser  of  the 
two  Jenkinsons."^  Lord  Hawkesbury  has  said  that 
"  nothing  is  to  be  granted  to  the  Catholics  from  fear." 
Why  not,  asks  Peter,  if  the  thing  demanded  is  just  ? 

"  The  only  true  way  to  make  the  mass  of  mankind  see  the 
beauty  of  justice  is  by  showing  them  in  pretty  plain  terms  the 

1  Spencer  Perceval. 

2  Robert  Baukes  Jenkinson  (1770-1820),  2nd  Earl  of  Liverpool, 
was  Lord  Hawkesbury  from  1796  to  1808. 


GO  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

consequences  of  injustice.  If  any  body  of  French  troops  land 
in  Ireland,  the  whole  population  of  that  country  will  rise 
against  you  to  a  man,  and  you  could  not  possibly  survive  such 
an  event  three  years.  Such,  from  the  bottom  of  my  lieart,  do 
I  believe  to  be  the  present  state  of  that  country  ;  and  so  little 
does  it  aj^pear  to  me  to  be  impolitic  and  unstatesmanlike  to 
concede  anything  to  such  a  danger,  that  if  the  Catholics,  iu 
addition  to  their  present  just  demands,  were  to  petition  for 
the  perpetual  removal  of  the  said  Lord  Hawkesbury  from  his 
INIajosty's  councils,  I  think  the  prayer  of  the  petition  should 
be  instantly  complied  with.  Canning's  crocodile  tears  shoidd 
not  move  me  ;  the  hoops  of  the  JNIaids  of  Honour  should  not 
hide  him.  I  would  tear  him  from  tlie  banisters  of  the  Back 
Stairs,  and  plunge  him  iu  tlie  fishy  fumes  of  the  dirtiest  of 
all  his  Cinque  Ports."  ^ 

Letter  VII.  begins  with  a  rebuke  to  brotliev  Abraham 
for  placing  all  his  hopes  for  the  salvation  of  England 
in  the  "discretion"  and  "sound  sense"  of  Mr.  Secre- 
tary Canning.  — 

"  To  call  him  a  legislator,  a  reasoner,  and  the  conductor  of 
the  affairs  of  a  great  nation,  seems  to  nie  as  absurd  as  if  a 
butterlly  were  to  teach  bees  to  nuike  honey.  That  he  is  an 
extraordinary  writer  of  small  poetry,  and  a  diner-out  of  the 
highest  lustre,  I  do  most  readily  admit.  .  .  .  The  Foreign 
Secretary  is  a  gentleman  —  a  respectable  as  well  as  a  highly 
agreeable  man  in  private  life ;  but  you  nuiy  as  well  feed  me 
with  decayed  potatoes  as  console  me  for  the  miseries  of  Ire- 
land by  the  resources  of  his  '  sense  '  and  his  '  discretion.'  It 
is  only  the  public  situation  whicli  this  gentleman  holds  that 
entitles  me  or  induces  me  to  say  so  much  about  him.  lie  is 
a  fly  in  amber  :  nobody  cares  about  the  fly  ;  the  only  question 
is,  How  th(^  devil  did  it  get  there?  Nor  do  I  attack  him  from 
the  love  of  glory,  but  from  the  love  of  utility,  as  a  burgo- 
master hunts  a  rat  in  a  Dutch  dyke,  for  fear  it  should  Hood 
a  province." 

1  Lord  Hawkesbury  was  appointed  Lord  Warden  of  the  Ciiuiue 
Ports  at  a  salary  of  £3000  a  year. 


in.]  PETER  PLYMLEY  61 

Under  the  rule  of  Canning  and  his  colleagues, 
Ireland  has  become  utterly  disloyal.  — 

"  The  great  mass  of  the  Catholic  population,  upon  the 
slightest  appearance  of  a  French  force  in  that  country,  would 
rise  upon  you  to  a  man.  There  is  no  loyalt}"  among  the 
Catholics :  they  detest  you  as  their  worst  oppressors,  and 
they  will  continue  to  detest  you  till  you  remove  the  cause  of 
their  hatred.     It  is  in  your  power  in  six  months'  time  to 

produce  a  total  revolution  of  opinions  among  these  people 

At  present  see  what  a  dreadful  state  Ireland  is  in  !  The 
common  toast  among  the  low  Irish  is,  '  The  Feast  of  the 
Pai's-over.'  Some  allusion  to  Bonaparte,  in  a  play  lately 
acted  at  Dublin,  produced  thunders  of  applause  from  the  pit 
and  the  galleries;  and  a  politician  sJiould  not  be  inattentive 
to  the  public  feelings  expressed  in  theatres.  Mr.  Perceval 
thinks  he  has  disarmed  the  Irish.  He  has  no  more  disarmed 
the  Irish  than  he  has  resigned  a  shilling  of  his  own  public 
emoluments.  An  Irish  peasant  fills  the  barrel  of  his  gun  full 
of  tow  dipped  in  oil,  butters  the  lock,  buries  it  in  a  bog,  and 
allows  the  Orange  bloodhound  to  ransack  his  cottage  at 
pleasure.  Be  just  and  kind  to  the  Irish,  and  you  will  indeed 
disarm  them ;  rescue  them  from  the  degraded  servitude  in 
which  they  are  held  by  an  handful  of  their  own  countrymen  ; 
and  you  will  add  four  millions  of  brave  and  affectionate  men 
to  your  strength." 

But  instead  of  these  wise  remedies,  Mr.  Secretary 
Canning  only  offers  the  Irish  people  his  incessant, 
unseasonable,  and  sometimes  indecent  jokes. — 

"  He  jokes  upon  neutral  flags  and  frauds,  jokes  upon  Irish 
rebels,  jokes  upon  northern  and  western  and  southern  foes, 
and  gives  himself  no  trouble  upon  any  subject.  .  .  .  And  this 
is  the  Secretary  whose  genius,  in  the  estimation  of  brother 
Abraham,  is  to  extinguish  the  genius  of  Bonaparte.  Poinpey 
was  killed  by  a  slave,  Goliath  smitten  by  a  stripling ;  Pyrrhus 
died  by  the  hand  of  a  woman.  Tremble,  thou  great  Gaul, 
from  whose  head  an  armed  Minerva  leaps  forth  in  the  hour  of 


62  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

danger;  tremble,  thou  scourge  of  God,  for  a  pleasant  man  is 
come  out  against  thee,  and  thou  shalt  be  laid  low  by  a  joker 
of  jokes." 

Abraham  comforts  himself  with  his  reflection  that 
Bonaparte  has  no  ships  or  sailors.  But,  says  Peter, 
there  are  quite  enough  remains  of  the  navies  of  France, 
Spain,  Holland,  and  Denmark,  for  such  a  short  excur- 
sion as  would  be  needed  for  the  capture  of  Ireland. 
And  Bonaparte  can  increase  his  forces  every  day. 
With  all  Europe  at  his  feet,  he  can  get  timber  and 
stores  and  men  to  any  conceivable  amount.  "  He  is  at 
present  the  despotic  monarch  of  above  twenty  thousand 
miles  of  sea-coast,  and  yet  you  suppose  he  cannot 
procure  sailors  for  the  invasion  of  Ireland."  Ireland  is 
still  the  burden  of  the  song.  Conciliate  Ireland  and  all 
will  be  well.     Tyrannize  over  her  and  we  are  undone. 

"  If  Ireland  was  friendly,  we  might  equally  set  at  defiance 
the  talents  of  Bonaparte  and  the  blunders  of  his  rival  Mr. 
Canning :  we  could  then  support  the  ruinous  and  silly  bustle 
of  our  useless  expeditions,  and  the  almost  incredible  ignorance 
of  our  commercial  Orders  in  Council.^  Let  the  present  ad- 
ministration give  up  but  this  one  point,  and  there  is  nothing 

1  "The  allusion  is  to  the  Orders  in  Council  under  which  Mr. 
Perceval  endeavoured  to  retaliate  on  Napoleon's  Baltic  decree 
by  regulating  British  trade  with  the  Continent.  Under  these 
orders  the  exportation  of  all  goods  to  France  was  prohibited 
which  were  not  carried  from  this  country  and  had  not  paid  an 
export-duty  here.  But  there  were  certain  articles  which  the 
Minister  decided  that  the  Continent  should  have  on  no  terms, 
and  amongst  others  quinine,  or  Jesuit's  Bark,  as  it  was  called. 
Sydney  Smith,  writing  as  Peter  Plymley,  said,  'You  cannot 
seriously  suppose  the  people  to  be  so  degraded  as  to  look  for 
their  safety  from  a  man  who  proposes  to  subdue  Europe  by 
keeping  it  without  Jesuit's  Bark. '"  —  Sir  Spencer  Walpolb, 
Life  of  Lord  John  Russell. 


III.]  PETER  PLYMLEY  63 

whicli  I  would  not  consent  to  grant  them.  Perceval  should 
have  full  liberty  to  insult  the  tomb  of  Mr.  Fox,  and  to  torment 
every  eminent  Dissenter  in  Great  Britain.  Lord  Camden 
should  have  large  boxes  of  plums ;  Mr.  Rose  receive  permission 
to  prefix  to  his  name  the  appellation  of  Virtuous ;  and  to  the 
A^iscount  Castle reagh  a  round  sum  of  ready  money  shall  be 
well  and  truly  paid  into  his  hand.^  Lastly,  what  remains  to 
Mr.  George  Canning,  but  that  he  ride  up  and  down  Pall  Mall 
glorious  upon  a  white  horse,  and  that  they  cry  out  before 
him, '  Thus  shall  it  be  done  to  the  statesman  who  hath  written 
The  Needy  Knife-Grinder  ">." 

Letter  VIII.  begins  with  the  statistics  of  Ireland, 
its  area,  population,  trade,  manufactures,  exports,  and 
imports.  ''  Ireland  has  the  greatest  possible  facilities 
for  carrying  on  commerce  with  the  whole  of  Europe. 
It  contains,  within  a  circuit  of  750  miles,  66  secure 
harbours,  and  presents  a  Avestern  frontier  against 
Great  Britain,  reaching  from  the  Firth  of  Clyde  north 
to  the  Bristol  Channel  south,  and  varying  in  distance 
from  20  to  100  miles ;  so  that  the  subjugation  of 
Ireland  w'ould  compel  us  to  guard  with  ships  and 
soldiers  a  new  line  of  coast,  certainly  amounting,  with 
all  its  sinuosities,  to  more  than  700  miles — an  addition 
of  polemics,  in  our  present  state  of  hostility  with  all 
the  world,  which  must  highly  gratify  the  vigorists  and 
give  them  an  ample  opportunity  of  displaying  that 
foolish  energy  upon  which  their  claims  to  distinction 
are  founded.  Such  is  the  country  which  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  would  drive  into  the  arms  of 
France." 

Religious  freedom,  continues  Peter,  is  the  strongest 

1  In  1839  Sydney  Smith  pronounced  this  "  a  very  unjust  im- 
putation on  Lord  Castlereagh."  Robert  Stewart  (1769-1823), 
Viscount  Castlereagh,  became  Marquis  of  Londonderry  in  1821. 


64  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 


safeguard  of  states.  France  has  it,  and  is  victorious  over 
Europe ;  England  lacks  it,  and  is  in  imminent  peril, 
"  How  sincerely  and  fervently  have  I  often  wished  that 
the  Emperor  of  the  French  had  thought  as  Mr.  Spencer 
Perceval  does  upon  the  subject  of  government ;  that 
he  had  entertained  doubts  and  scruples  upon  the  pro- 
priety of  admitting  the  Protestants  to  an  equality  of 
rights  with  the  Catholics,  and  that  he  had  left  in  the 
middle  of  his  empire  these  vigorous  seeds  of  hatred 
and  disaffection.  But  the  world  was  never  yet 
conquered  by  a  blockhead.  One  of  the  very  first 
measures  we  saw  him  recurring  to  was  the  complete 
establishment  of  religious  liberty.  If  his  subjects 
fought  and  paid  as  he  pleased,  he  allowed  them  to 
believe  as  they  pleased.  The  moment  I  saw  this,  my 
best  hopes  were  lost.  I  perceived  in  a  moment  the 
kind  of  man  we  had  to  do  with.  I  was  well  aware  of 
the  miserable  ignorance  and  folly  of  the  country  upon 
the  subject  of  Toleration ;  and  every  year  has  been 
adding  to  the  success  of  that  game  which  it  was  clear 
he  had  the  will  and  the  ability  to  play  against  us." 

Abraham  has  suggested  that  the  Emperor  is  not  a 
religious  man,  and  that  his  tolerance  is  the  fruit  of 
indifference.  But,  says  Peter,  ''if  Bonaparte  is  liberal 
in  subjects  of  religion  because  he  has  no  religion,  is 
this  a  reason  why  we  should  be  illiberal  because  we 
are  Christians  ?  If  he  owes  this  excellent  quality  to 
a  vice,  is  that  any  reason  why  we  may  not  owe  it 
to  a  virtue  ?  Toleration  is  a  great  good,  and  a  good 
to  be  imitated,  let  it  come  from  whom  it  will." 

And  now  Peter  turns  upon  Lord  Sidmouth,^  who  has 

1  Henry  Addington  (1757-1844),  created  Viscount  Sidmouth 
in  1805. 


III.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  65 

been  prophesying  woe  and  destruction  from  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  Koman  Catholics.  Such  prophecies,  he 
says,  will,  in  the  process  of  time,  become  matter  of 
pleasantry  even  to  "  the  sedulous  housewife  and  the 
Kural  Dean."  There  is  always  a  copious  supply  of 
Lord  Sidmouths  in  the  world,  and  they  have  always 
uttered  the  most  dismal  predictions  about  every  im- 
provement in  the  lot  of  mankind.  — 

"  Turnpike  roads,  navigable  canals,  inoculation,  hops, 
tobacco,  the  Reformation,  the  Revolution — there  are  always  a 
set  of  worthy  and  moderately-gifted  men  who  bawl  out  death 
and  ruin  upon  every  valuable  change  which  the  varying 
aspect  of  human  affairs  absolutely  and  imperiously  requires." 

The  only  contention  of  poor  Abraham  which  Peter 
will  in  the  slightest  degree  accept,  is  that  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  Roman  Catholics  will  alienate  the  Orange- 
men. But,  even  if  this  be  the  result  of  a  just  act,  it 
is  far  less  formidable  than  the  result  of  continued 
injustice.  Brother  Abraham,  ^'  skilled  in  the  arithmetic 
of  Tithe,"  must  perceive  that  it  is  better  to  have  four 
friends  and  one  enemy,  than  four  enemies  and  one 
friend ;  and,  the  more  violent  the  hatred  of  the 
Orangemen,  the  more  certain  the  reconciliation  of  the 
Catholics.  Even  supposing,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  the  Orangemen  carry  their  disafEection  to  the 
point  of  resistance,  and  brave  the  discipline  of  the 
law,  the  prospect  has  no  terrors  for  Peter  Plymley.  — 

"  ]\Iy  love  of  poetical  justice  does  carry  me  as  far  as  that  — 
one  summer's  whipping,  only  one;  the  thumb-screw  for  a 
short  season;  a  little  light,  easy  torturing  between  Lady 
Day  and  Michaelmas ;  a  short  specimen  of  Mr.  Perceval's 
rigour.  I  have  malice  enough  to  ask  this  slight  atonement 
for  the  groans  and  shrieks  of  the  poor  Catholics,  unheard  by 


66  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

any  human  trilninal,  but  registered  by  the  Angel  of  God 
against  their  Protestant  and  enlightened  oppressors." 

Letter  IX.  opens  with  an  enumeration  of  offices  not 
tenable  by  adherents  of  the  Roman  faith. 

"No  Catholic  can  be  chief  Governor  or  Governor  of  this 
Kingdom,  Chancellor  or  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal,  Lord  High 
Treasurer,  Chief  of  any  of  the  Courts  of  Justice,  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  Puisne  Judge,  Judge  in  the  Admiralty, 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  Secretary  of  State,  Keeper  of  the  Privy 
Seal,  Vice-Treasurer  or  his  Deputy,  Teller  or  Cashier  of 
Exchequer,  Auditor  or  General,  Governor  or  Gustos  Rotulorum 
of  Counties,  Chief  Governor's  Secretary,  Privy  Councillor, 
King's  Counsel,  Serjeant,  Attorney,  Solicitor-General,  Master 
in  Chancery,  Provost  or  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin, 
Postmaster-General,  Master  and  Lieutenant-Gen eral  of 
Ordnance,  Commander-in-Chief,  General  on  the  Staff,  Sheriff, 
Sub-Sheriff,  Mayor,  Bailiff,  Recorder,  Burgess,  or  any  other 
officer  in  a  City,  or  a  Corporation.  No  Catholic  can  be 
guardian  to  a  Protestant,  and  no  priest  guardian  at  all :  no 
Catholic  can  be  a  gamekeeper,  or  have  for  sale,  or  otherwise, 
any  arms  or  warlike  stores ;  no  Catholic  can  present  to  a 
living,  unless  he  choose  to  turn  Jew  in  oi'der  to  obtain  that 
privilege ;  and  the  pecuniary  qualification  of  Catholic  jurors 
is  made  higher  than  that  of  Protestants." 

Out  of  that  splendid  list  of  unattainable  posts,  Peter 
Plymley  chooses,  to  illustrate  his  theme,  the  offices  of 
Sheriff  and  Deputy-Sheriff  in  Ireland.  No  one,  he 
says,  who  is  unacquainted  with  that  country,  can 
conceive  the  obstacles  to  justice  which  exclusion  from 
these  offices  entails.  The  lives,  liberties,  and  properties 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  population  are  at  the  mercy  of 
the  Juries,  and  the  Juries  are  nominated  exclusively 
by  Protestants  —  and  this  in  a  country  where  religious 
animosities  are  peculiarly  inflamed.  — 

"  A  poor   Catholic   in   Ireland  may  be   tried  by  twelve 


III.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  *  67 

Percevals,  and  destroyed,  according  to  the  manner  of  that 
gentleman,  in  the  name  of  the  law,  and  with  all  the  insulting 
forms  of  justice.  I  will  not  go  the  length  of  saying  that 
deliberate  and  wilful  injustice  is  done.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  the  Orange  Deputy-Sheriff  thinks  it  would  be  a  most 
unpardonable  breach  of  his  duty  if  he  did  not  summon  a 
Protestant  panel.  I  can  easily  believe  that  the  Protestant 
panel  may  conduct  themselves  very  conscientiously  in  hang- 
ing the  gentlemen  of  the  Crucifix;  but  I  blame  the  law 
which  does  not  guard  the  Catholic  against  the  probable 
tenour  of  those  feelings  which  must  unconsciously  influence 
the  judgments  of  mankind.  I  detest  that  state  of  society 
which  extends  unequal  degrees  of  protection  to  different 
creeds  and  persuasions;  and  I  cannot  describe  to  you  the 
contempt  I  feel  for  a  man  who,  calling  himself  a  statesman, 
defends  a  system  which  fills  the  heart  of  every  Irishman  with 
treason." 

If  then  the  Courts  of  Assize  are,  by  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  instruments  of  injustice,  it  is  the  Grand 
Juries  which  are  the  great  scene  of  Jobbery.  They 
have  the  powder  of  levying  a  county  rate  for  roads, 
bridges,  and  other  public  accommodations.  Milesian 
gentlemen,  attendant  on  the  Grand  Inquest  of  Justice, 
arrange  these  little  matters  for  their  mutual  con- 
venience. — 

"You  suffer  the  road  to  be  brought  through  my  park, 
and  I  will  have  the  bridge  constructed  in  a  situation  where 
it  will  make  a  beautiful  object  to  your  house.  You  do  my 
job,  and  I  will  do  yours." 

And  so,  as  far  as  the  Protestant  gentry  are  con- 
cerned, all  is  well.  But  there  is  a  religion  even  in 
jobs;  "and  it  will  be  highly  gratifying  to  Mr. 
Perceval  to  learn  that  no  man  in  Ireland  who  believes 
in  Seven  Sacraments  can  carry  a  public  road,  or 
bridge,  one  yard  out  of  its  way,  and  that  nobody  can 


68  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

cheat  the  public  who  does  not  expound  the  Scriptures 
in  the  purest  and  most  orthodox  manner.  ...  I  ask 
if  the  human  mind  can  experience  a  more  dreadful 
sensation  than  to  see  its  own  jobs  refused,  and  the 
jobs  of  another  religion  jjerpetually  succeeding  ?  " 

And  then  again  there  is  the  grievance  which  consists 
in  exclusion  from  the  higher  posts  of  the  Professions. — 

"  Look  at  human  nature.  Your  boy  Joel  is  to  be  brought 
up  to  the  Bar :  has  Mrs.  Plyraley  the  sbghtest  doubt  of 
his  being  Chancellor?  Do  not  his  two  shrivelled  aunts  live 
in  the  certainty  of  seeing  him  in  that  situation,  and  of  cutting- 
out  with  their  own  hands  his  equity  habiliments?  And  I 
could  name  a  certain  Minister  of  the  Gospel  who  does  not, 
in  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  much  differ  from  these  opinions. 
Do  you  think  tliat  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  the  holy 
Catholic  church  are  not  as  absurd  as  Protestant  papas  and 
mammas  ?  The  probability  I  admit  to  be,  in  each  case,  that 
the  sweet  little  blockhead  will  in  fact  never  get  a  brief.  But 
I  venture  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  parent  from  the  Giant's 
Causeway  to  Bantry  Bay,  who  does  not  conceive  that  his 
child  is  the  unfortunate  victim  of  the  exclusion,  and  that 
nothing  short  of  positive  law  could  prevent  his  own  dear, 
pre-eminent  Paddy  from  rising  to  the  highest  honours  of  the 
State.  So  with  the  army,  and  Parliament.  In  fact,  few  are 
excluded ;  but,  in  imagination,  all.  You  keep  twenty  or 
thirty  Catholics  out,  and  lose  the  affections  of  four  millions." 

And  then  Peter  turns  to  the  war-cry  of  No  Popery, 
which  had  been  so  vigorously  and  successfully  raised 
at  the  General  Election  of  1807,  and  derides  the  loyal 
indignation  then  directed  against  the  Ministers  who 
had  the  heart  to  worry  George  iii.  with  plans  of 
redress  for  Roman  Catholics. — 

"  The  general  cry  in  the  country  was,  that  they 
would  not  see  their  beloved  monarch  used  ill  in  his 
old  age,  and  that  they  would  stand  by  him  to  the 


III.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  69 

last  drop  of  their  blood."  This  ebullition  of  ill-judging 
loyalty  reminds  Peter  of  an  accident  which  once  befell 
the  Russian  Ambassador  in  London.  His  Excellency 
fell  down  in  a  fit  when  paying  a  morning  call.  A 
doctor  was  summoned,  who  declared  that  the  patient 
must  be  instantly  bled ;  and  he  prepared  to  perform 
the  operation.  ''But  the  barbarous  servants  of  the 
Embassy,  when  they  saw  the  gleaming  lancet,  drew 
their  swords,  threw  themselves  into  an  attitude  of 
defiance,  and  swore  they  would  kill  the  man  who 
dared  to  hurt  their  beloved  master." 

Peter's  own  remedy  for  Irish  disaffection  was,  first, 
to  remove  all  civil  penalties  for  religious  faith,  and 
then  to  subsidize  the  Roman  Catholic  bishops  and 
clergy  in  Ireland,  and  pay  for  the  maintenance  of  their 
schools  and  churches.  He  calculated  that  this  would 
cost  £250,000  a  year.  The  clergy  should  all  receive 
their  salaries  through  the  Bank  of  Ireland;  the 
salaries  were  to  be  proportioned  to  the  size  of  the 
congregations ;  and  all  patronage  should  be  lodged  in 
the  hands  of  the  Crown.  — 

"  Now  I  appeal  to  any  human  being,  what  the  disaffection 
of  a  clergy  would  amount  to,  gaping  after  this  graduated 
bounty  of  the  Crown  ;  and  whether  Ignatius  Loyola  himself, 
if  he  were  a  living  blockhead  instead  of  a  dead  saint,  could 
withstand  the  temptation  of  bouncing  from  £100  a  year  in 
Sligo,  to  £300  in  Tipperary.  This  is  the  miserable  sum  of 
money  for  which  the  merchants,  and  landowners,  and  nobil- 
ity of  England,  are  exposing  themselves  to  the  tremendous 
peril  of  losing  Leland." 

If  all  these  schemes  of  conciliation  were  rejected  as 
dangerous  and  impracticable,  there  remained  of  course 
the   time-honoured   remedy   of   Coercion.      This   had 


70  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

been  demanded  by  Spencer  Perceval,  when  attacking 
the  conciliatory  administration  of  "  All  the  Talents," 
and  it  provoked  Peter  Plymley  to  a  characteristic 
outburst :  — 

"I  cannot  describe  the  horror  and  disgust  which  I  felt  at 
hearing  Mr.  Perceval  call  for  measures  of  vigour  in  Ireland. 
If  I  lived  at  Hampstead  ^  upon  stewed  meats  and  claret ;  if  I 
walked  to  church  every  Sunday  morning  before  eleven  young 
gentlemen  of  my  own  begetting,  with  their  faces  washed,  and 
their  hair  pleasingly  combed ;  if  the  Almighty  had  blessed 
me  with  every  earthly  comfort  —  how  awfully  would  I  pause 
before  I  sent  forth  the  flame  and  the  sword  over  the  cabins 
of  the  poor,  brave,  generous,  open-hearted  peasants  of  Ire- 
land !  How  easy  it  is  to  shed  human  blood !  How  easy  it  is 
to  persuade  ourselves  that  it  is  our  duty  to  do  so,  and  that  the 
decision  has  cost  us  a  severe  struggle !  How  much  in  all  ages 
have  wounds  and  shrieks  and  tears  been  the  cheap  and  vul- 
gar resources  of  the  rulers  of  mankind !  How  difficult  it  is 
to  govern  in  kindness,  and  to  found  an  empire  upon  the 
everlasting  basis  of  justice  and  affection  !  " 

Letter  X.  begins  with  some  observations  on  the 
Law  of  Tithe  in  Ireland.  "  I  submit  to  yonr  common 
sense,  if  it  is  possible  to  explain  to  an  Irish  peasant 
upon  what  principle  of  justice  he  is  to  pay  every  tenth 
potato  in  his  little  garden  to  a  clergyman  in  whose 
religion  nobody  believes  for  twenty  miles  round  him, 
and  who  has  nothing  to  preach  to  but  bare  walls." 
Let  the  landowner  pay  the  tithe,  and  charge  the 
labourer  a  higher  rent.  This,  Peter  seems  to  think, 
will  meet  all  the  difficulties  of  the  case,  and  yet  not 
impoverish  the  Established  clergy.  And  he  is  more 
than  ever  persuaded  that  the  best  way  to  check  the 

1  Spencer  Perceval  had  recently  taken  a  villa  on  Hampstead 
Heath,  for  the  benefit  of  his  wife's  health. 


III.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  71 

predominance  of  the  Roman  Church  in  Ireland  is  to 
deliver  the  Romanists  from  every  species  of  religious 
disability.  On  this  theme  Peter  harps  in  a  vein 
which,  if  he  were  a  clergyman  writing  over  his  own 
name,  would  be  justly  described  as  cynical.  — 

"  If  a  rich  young  Catholic  were  in  Parliament,  he  would 
belong  to  White's  and  to  Brookes's  ;  would  keep  race-horses; 
would  walk  up  and  down  Pall  Mall;  be  exonerated  of  his 
ready  money  and  his  constitution  ;  become  as  totally  devoid 
of  morality,  honesty,  knowledge,  and  civility,  as  Protestant 
loungers  in  PaU  Mall ;  and  return  home  with  a  supreme 
contempt  for  Father  O'Leary  and  Father  O'Callaghan.  .  .  . 
The  true  receipt  for  preserving  the  Roman  Catholic  religion 
is  Mr.  Perceval's  receipt  for  destroying  it:  it  is  to  deprive 
every  rich  Catholic  of  all  the  objects  of  secular  ambition,  to 
separate  him  from  the  Protestants,  and  to  shut  him  up  in  his 
castle  with  priests  and  relics." 

However  sonnd  this  estimate  of  theological  results 
may  be,  Abraham  thinks  that  a  period  of  universal  war 
is  not  the  pro^Der  time  for  innovations  in  the  Constitu- 
tion. This,  replies  Peter,  ''  is  as  much  as  to  say  that 
the  worst  time  for  making  friends  is  the  period  when 
you  have  made  many  enemies ;  that  it  is  the  greatest 
of  all  errors  to  stop  when  you  are  breathless,  and  to 
lie  down  when  you  are  fatigued." 

Abraham,  and  those  who  think  with  him,  hold  that 
concession  to  Roman  Catholics  ought  to  be  refused, 
if  for  no  other  reason,  because  King  George  iii.  dis- 
likes it.  This  is  an  argument  which  Peter  cannot 
away  with.  He  respects  the  King  as  a  good  man,  and 
holds  that  loyalty  is  one  of  the  great  instruments  of 
English  happiness.  — 

"  But  the  love  of  the  King  mav  easily  become  more  strons; 
than  the  love  of  the  Kingdom,  and  we  may  lose  sight  of  the 


72  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

public  welfare  in  our  exaggerated  admiration  of  him  who  is 
appointed  to  reign  only  for  its  promotion  and  support.  .  .  . 
God  save  the  King,  you  say,  warms  your  heart  like  the  sound 
of  a  trumpet.  I  cannot  make  use  of  so  violent  a  metaphor  ; 
but  I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,  when  it  is  a  cry  of  genuine 
affection :  I  am  delighted  to  hear  it  when  they  hail  not  only 
the  individual  man,  but  the  outward  and  living  sign  of  all 
English  blessings.  These  ai'e  noble  feelings,  and  the  heart  of 
every  good  man  must  go  with  them ;  but  God  save  the  King, 
in  these  times,  too  often  means  —  God  save  my  pension  and 
my  place,  God  give  my  sisters  an  allowance  out  of  the  Privy 
Purse  —  make  me  Clerk  of  the  Irons,  let  me  survey  the 
Meltings,  let  me  live  ujx)!!  the  fruits  of  other  men's  industry, 
and  fatten  upon  the  plunder  of  the  public." 

This  brings  us  again  to  the  "  sepulchral  Spencer 
Perceval,"  as  lie  is  called  in  another  place,  with  his 
enormous  emoluments  from  the  public  purse,  his 
dream  of  pacifying  Ireland  by  converting  its  in- 
habitants to  Protestantism,  and  his  fantastic  policy  of 
the  Orders  in  Council.  — 

"  He  would  bring  the  French  to  reason  by  keeping  them 
without  rhubarb,  and  exhibit  to  mankind  the  awful  spectacle 
of  a  nation  deprived  of  neutral  salts.  This  is  not  the  dream 
of  a  wild  apothecary  indulging  in  his  own  opium  ;  this  is  not 
the  distempered  fancy  of  a  pounder  of  drugs,  delirious  from 
smallness  of  profits  —  but  it  is  the  sober,  deliberate,  and 
systematic  scheme  of  a  man  to  whom  the  public  safety  is 
entrusted,  and  whose  appointment  is  considered  by  many  as  a 
masterpiece  of  political  sagacity." 

And  now,  having  exhausted  the  "  Catholic  Question  " 
as  it  presents  itself  in  England  and  Ireland,  Peter 
Plymley  (who  has  already  called  attention  to  the 
religious  liberty  established  in  France)  cites  the  cases 
of  Switzerland  and  Hungary  as  illustrating  the  civil 


III.]  PETER  PLYMLEY  73 

strength  of  nations  free  from  the  legalized  animosities 
of  religion.  Did  Frederick  the  Great  ever  refuse  the 
services  of  a  Catholic  soldier  ?  There  is  a  Catholic 
Secretary  of  State  at  St.  Petersburgh.  There  was  a 
Greek  Patriarch  associated  with  a  Vicar-Apostolic  in 
the  government  of  Venice.  A  Catholic  Emperor  has 
entrusted  the  command  of  his  guard  to  a  Protestant 
Prince.  But  what  signifies  all  this  to  Spencer  Per- 
ceval? He  looks  at  human  nature  from  the  top  of 
Hampstead  Hill,  and  has  not  a  thought  beyond  the 
sphere  of  his  own  vision.  And  so  we  reach  the  con- 
clusion of  the  whole  matter.  — 

"  I  now  take  a  final  leave  of  this  subject  of  Ireland.  The 
only  difficulty  in  discussing  it  is  a  want  of  resistance  —  a  want 
of  something  difficult  to  luiravel  and  something  dark  to 
illumine.  To  agitate  such  a  question  is  to  beat  the  air  with 
a  club,  and  cut  down  gnats  with  a  scimitar:  it  is  a  pros- 
titution of  industry,  and  a  waste  of  strength.  If  a  man 
says,  'I  have  a  good  place,  and  I  do  not  choose  to  lose  it,' 
this  mode  of  arguing  upon  the  Catholic  Question  I  can  well 
understand.  But  that  any  human  being  with  an  understand- 
ing two  degrees  elevated  above  that  of  an  Anabaptist  preacher 
should  conscientiously  contend  for  the  expediency  and  pro- 
priety of  leaving  the  Irish  Catholics  in  their  present  state, 
and  of  subjecting  us  to  siich  tremendous  peril  in  the  present 
condition  of  the  world,  it  is  utterly  out  of  my  power  to  con- 
ceive. Such  a  measure  as  the  Catholic  Question  is  entirely 
beyond  the  common  game  of  politics.  It  is  a  measure  in 
which  all  parties  ought  to  acquiesce,  in  order  to  preserve  the 
place  where  and  the  stake  for  which  they  play.  If  Ireland  is 
gone,  where  are  jobs?  where  are  reversions?  where  is  my 
brother.  Lord  Arden?i  where  are  'my  dear  and  near  re- 
lations '  ?     The  game  is  up,  and  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 

1  Spencer  Perceval's  elder  brother,  Charles  George  Perceval 
(175(5-1840),  was  created  Lord  Ardeu  iu  1S02. 


74  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Commons  will  be  sent  as  a  present  to  the  menagerie  at  Paris. 
We  talk  of  waiting,  as  if  centuries  of  joy  and  prosperity- 
were  before  us.  In  the  next  ten  years  our  fate  must  be 
decided;  we  shall  know,  long  before  that  period,  whether 
we  can  bear  up  against  the  miseries  by  which  we  are 
threatened,  or  not :  and  yet,  in  the  very  midst  of  our  crisis, 
we  are  enjoined  to  abstain  from  the  most  certain  means  of 
increasing  our  strength,  and  advised  to  wait  for  the  remedy 
till  the  disease  is  removed  by  death  or  health.  And  now, 
instead  of  the  plain  and  manly  policy  of  increasing  unanimity 
at  home,  by  equalizing  rights  and  privileges,  what  is  the 
ignorant,  arrogant,  and  wicked  system  which  has  been  pur- 
sued? Such  a  career  of  madness  and  of  folly  was,  I  believe, 
never  run  in  so  short  a  period.  The  vigour  of  the  ministry  is 
like  the  vigour  of  a  grave-digger  —  the  tomb  becomes  more 
ready  and  more  wide  for  every  effort  which  they  make.  .  ,  . 
Every  Englishman  felt  proud  of  the  integrity  of  his  country, 
the  character  of  the  country  is  lost  for  ever.  It  is  of  the 
utmost  consequence  to  a  commercial  people  at  war  with 
the  greatest  part  of  Europe,  that  there  should  be  a  free 
entry  of  neutrals  into  the  enemy's  ports ;  the  neutrals  who 
carried  our  manufactures  we  have  not  only  excluded,  but 
we  have  compelled  them  to  declare  war  against  us.  It  was 
our  interest  to  make  a  good  peace,  or  convince  our  own 
people  that  it  could  not  be  obtained ;  we  have  not  made 
a  peace,  and  we  have  convinced  the  people  of  nothing  but 
of  the  arrogance  of  the  Foreign  Secretary :  and  all  this  has 
taken  place  in  the  short  space  of  a  year,  because  a  King's 
Bench  barrister  and  a  writer  of  epigrams,  turned  into  Ministers 
of  State,  were  determined  to  show  country  gentlemen  that  the 
late  administration  had  no  vigour.  In  the  mean  time 
commerce  stands  still,  manufactures  perish,  Ireland  is  more 
and  more  irritated,  India  is  threatened,  fresh  taxes  are 
accumulated  upon  the  wretched  people,  the  war  is  carried  on 
without  it  being  possible  to  conceive  any  one  single  object 
which  a  rational  being  can  propose  to  himself  by  its  continua- 
tion ;  and  in  the  midst  of  this  unparalleled  insanity  we  are 
told  that  the  Continent  is  to  be  reconquered  by  the  want  of 


ly.]  PETER   PLYMLEY  75 

rhubarb  and  plums.  A  better  spirit  than  exists  in  the 
English  people  never  existed  in  any  people  in  the  world; 
it  has  been  misdirected,  and  squandered  upon  party  purposes 
in  the  most  degrading  and  scandalous  manner ;  they  have 
been  led  to  believe  that  they  were  benefiting  the  commerce  of 
England  by  destroying  the  commerce  of  America,  that  they 
were  defending  their  Sovereign  by  perpetuating  the  bigoted 
oppression  of  their  fellow-subjects ;  their  rulers  and  their 
guides  have  told  them  that  they  would  equal  the  vigour  of 
France  by  equalling  her  atrocity;  and  they  have  gone  on 
wasting  that  opulence,  patience,  and  courage,  which,  if 
husbanded  by  prudent  and  moderate  counsels,  might  have 
proved  the  salvation  of  mankind.  The  same  policy  of  turn- 
ing the  good  qualities  of  Englishmen  to  their  own  destruc- 
tion, which  made  Mr.  Pitt  omnipotent,  continues  his  power 
to  those  who  resemble  him  only  in  his  vices ;  advantage  is 
taken  of  the  loyalty  of  Englishmen  to  make  them  meanly 
submissive ;  their  piety  is  turned  into  persecution,  their  cour- 
age into  useless  and  obstinate  contention  ;  they  are  plundered 
because  they  are  ready  to  pay,  and  soothed  into  asinine  stupid- 
ity because  they  are  full  of  virtuous  patience.  If  England 
must  perish  at  last,  so  let  it  be ;  that  event  is  in  the  hands 
of  God ;  we  must  dry  up  our  tears  and  submit.  But,  that 
England  should  perish  swindling  and  stealing ;  that  it  should 
perish  waging  war  against  lazar-houses  and  hospitals ;  that 
it  should  perish  persecuting  with  monastic  bigotry ;  that  it 
should  calmly  give  itself  up  to  be  ruined  by  the  flashy  arro- 
gance of  one  man,  and  the  narrow  fanaticism  of  another; 
these  events  are  within  the  power  of  human  beings,  and  I 
did  not  think  that  the  magnanimity  of  Englishmen  would 
ever  stoop  to  such  degradations." 

So  ends  this  vivid  argument  on  behalf  of  political 
justice  and  social  equality.  Lord  Grenville  saw  the 
resemblance  to  Swift,  and  Lord  Holland  kindly  re- 
minded the  anonymous  satirist  that  "  the  only  author 
to  whom  he  could  be  compared  in  English,  lost  a  bish- 
opric for  his  wittiest  performance."     In  later  years 


76  SYDNEY   S]VnTH  [chap.  hi. 

Lord  Murray  ^  said, ''  After  Pascal's /^eWej's,  it  is  the  most 
instructive  piece  of  wisdom  in  the  form  of  Irony  ever 
written."  Macaulay  declared  that  Sydney  Smith  was 
"universally  admitted  to  have  been  a  great  reasoner, 
and  the  greatest  master  of  ridicule  that  has  appeared 
among  us  since  Swift."  Even  now,  after  a  century 
of  publishing,  Peter  Plymley''s  Letters  retain  their  pre- 
eminence. The  unexpurgated  edition  of  the  Apologia 
may  rank  with  the  Provincial  Letters ;  ^  but  the  creator 
of  Peter  and  Abraham  Plymley  stands  alone. 

1  John  Archibald  Murray  (1779-1859),  a  Judge  of  the  Court  of 
Session. 

2  In  October  1844  Eugene  Robin,  reviewing  Sydney  Smith  in  the 
Revue  ties  Deux  Mondes,  wrote  as  follows  :  —  "  Cache'  sous  le  pseu- 
donyme  de  Peter  Plymley  il  adresse  ces  nouvelles  provinciales  a 
un  reverend  pasteur,  qui  est  bien  le  parfait  modele  de  la  sottise 
protestante,  la  quintessence  des  docteurs  Bowles  et  des  archidiacres 
Nares." 


CHAPTER  IV 

FOSTON  —  "  PERSECUTING  BISHOPS  "  —  BENCH  AND  BAR 

At  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth,  the  most  serious  evil  which 
beset   the    Church   of    England    was    the   system  of 
Pluralities  and  JSTon-Eesidence.     A  prosperous  clergy- 
man might  hold  half-a-dozen  separate  preferments,  and, 
as  long  as  he  paid  curates  to  perform  the  irreducible 
minimum  of  public  dut}^,  he  need  never  show  his  face 
inside  his  deserted  parishes.     The  ecclesiastical  litera- 
ture of  the  time  abounds  in   quaint   illustrations   of 
the  equanimity  with  which   this  system,  and  all  its 
attendant  evils,  was  regarded  even  by  respectable  and 
conscientious  men.     Thomas  Newton,  the  commentator 
on  Prophecy,  was  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  as  well  as  Bishop 
of  Bristol,  and,  before  he   became   a  bishop,  held  a 
living   in    the   City,  a  Prebend  of  Westminster,  the 
Precentorship  of  York,  the  Lectureship  of  St.  George's, 
Hanover    Square,   and    "the    genteel    office  of    Sub- 
Almoner."     Richard  Watson   (who  is  believed  never 
to  have  set  foot  in  his  diocese)  was  Bishop  of  LlandafE 
and  Archdeacon  of  Ely,  and  drew  the  tithes  of  sixteen 
parishes.     William  Van  Mildert,  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Durham,  was  Rector  of  St.  Mary-le-Bow,  Cheapside, 
and  also  held  the  living  of  Farningham,  near  Seven- 
oaks,  "as  an   agreeable  retreat   within  a  convenient 

77 


78  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

distance  from  town."  Eichard  Valpy  was  Head 
Master  of  Eeading  School,  and  Sector  of  Stradishall 
in  Suffolk.  George  Butler,  afterwards  Dean  of  Peter- 
borough, was  Head  Master  of  Harrow  and  Eector  of 
Gayton  in  Northamptonshire.  Nearly  every  bishop 
had  a  living  together  with  his  see.  The  valuable 
Eectory  of  Stanhope  in  Durham  was  held  by  four 
successive  bishops.  Henry  Courtenay,  Bishop  of 
Exeter,  was  Eector  of  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square. 
George  Pelham,  Bishop  of  Exeter,  had  a  living  in 
Sussex,  and  Christopher  Bethell,  Bishop  of  Exeter, 
had  a  living  in  Yorkshire. 

When  Sydney  Smith  was  appointed  to  the  rectory 
of  Foston,  there  had  been  no  resident  Eector  since 
the  reign  of  Charles  ii.  The  churches  of  non-resident 
Eectors  were  commonly  served  by  what  were  called 
"  galloping  parsons,"  who  rattled  through  the  services 
required  by  law,  riding  at  full  speed  from  parish  to 
parish,  so  as  to  serve  perhaps  three  churches  on  one 
Sunday.  In  many  places  the  Holy  Communion  was 
celebrated  only  three  times  a  year.  At  Alderley, 
before  Edward  Stanley,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
became  Eector  there,  "the  clerk  used  to  go  to  the 
churchyard  stile  to  see  whether  there  were  any  more 
coming  to  church,  for  there  were  seldom  enough  to 
make  a  congregation.  The  former  Eector  used  to 
boast  that  he  had  never  set  foot  in  a  sick  person's 
cottage."  When  the  shepherds  thus  deserted  and 
starved  their  flocks,  it  was  only  natural  that  the 
sheep  betook  themselves  to  every  form  of  schism,  irre- 
ligion,  and  immorality.  To  remedy  these  evils,  Spencer 
Perceval,  whose  keen  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Church  had  a  curiously  irritating  effect  on  Sydney 


IV.]  FOSTON  79 

Smith,  took  in  hand  to  pass  the  Clergy  Residence 
Bill,  and  the  Bill  became  an  Act  in  1803.  In  1808 
a  new  Archbishop  ^  was  enthroned  at  York.  He 
immediately  began  to  put  the  Act  in  force,  and 
summoned  Sydney  Smith  from  the  joys  of  London 
to  the  austerities  of  Foston-le-Clay.  The  choice  lay 
between  complying  and  resigning,  for  no  exchange  of 
livings  seemed  practicable.  On  the  8th  of  October 
1808,  Sydney  wrote  to  Lady  Holland  —  "My  lot  is 
now  cast,  and  my  heritage  fixed  —  most  probably. 
But  you  may  choose  to  make  me  a  bishop,  and,  if  you 
do,  I  think  I  shall  never  do  you  discredit ;  for  I  be- 
lieve it  is  out  of  the  power  of  lawn  and  velvet,  and 
the  crisp  hair  of  dead  men  fashioned  into  a  wig,^  to 
make  me  a  dishonest  man." 

Two  months  later  he  wrote  —  "I  have  bought  a 
book  about  drilling  beans,  and  a  greyhound  puppy  for 
the  Malton  Meeting.  It  is  thought  I  shall  be  an  emi- 
nent rural  character."  The  expense  of  removing  his 
family  and  furniture  from  London  to  Yorkshire  was 
considerable,  so  he  published  two  volumes  of  sermons 
and  paid  for  the  journey  with  the  £200  which  he 
received  for  them.  The  rectory-house  at  Foston  was 
ruinous  and  uninhabitable,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
rebuild  it.  Meanwhile  the  Eector  hired  a  house  some 
way  off,  in  the  village  of  Heslington,  and  there  he  es- 
tablished himself  on  the  21st  of  June  1809,  "  two  hun- 
dred miles,"  as  he  ruefully  remarked,  "  from  London." 

1  Edward  Vernon,  afterwards  Harcourt  (1757-1847). 

2  Charles  James  Blomfield  (1786-1857),  Bishop  of  London,  was 
the  first  bishop  to  discard  the  episcopal  wig;  and  John  Bird 
Sumner  (1780-18G2),  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  last  to 
wear  it. 


80  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Tliree  days  later  he  wrote  to  Lady  Holland  that  he 
had  laid  down  two  rules  for  his  own  guidance  in  the 
country :  — 

"  1.  Xot  to  smite  the  partridge ;  for,  if  I  fed  the  poor,  and 
comforted  the  sick,  and  instructed  the  ignorant,  yet  I  should 
be  nothing  worth,  if  I  smote  the  partridge.  If  anything  ever 
endangers  the  Cliurch,  it  will  be  the  strong  propensity  to 
shooting  for  which  the  clergy  are  remarkable.  Ten  thousand 
good  shots  dispersed  over  the  country  do  more  harm  to  the 
cause  of  I'eligion  than  the  arguments  of  Voltaire  and  Ron  sseau.i 

"  2.  I  mean  to  come  to  town  once  a  year,  though  of  that, 
I  suppose,  I  shall  soon  be  weary,  finding  my  mind  growing 
weaker  and  weaker,  and  my  acquaintances  gradually  falling 
oif.  I  shall  by  this  time  have  taken  myself  again  to  shy 
tricks,  pull  about  my  watch-chain,  and  become  (as  I  was 
before)  your  abomination.  .  •  .  Mrs.  Sydney  is  all  rural 
bustle,  impatient  for  the  parturition  of  hens  and  pigs ;  I 
wait  patiently,  knowing  all  will  come  in  due  season." 

To  Jeffrey  he  wrote  on  the  3rd  of  September :  — 

"Instead  of  being  unamused  by  trifles,  I  am,  as  I  well 
knew  I  should  be,  amused  by  them  a  great  deal  too  much. 
I  feel  an  ungovernable  interest  about  my  horses,  my  pigs,  and 
my  plants.  I  am  forced,  and  always  Avas  forced,  to  task  my- 
self up  into  an  interest  for  any  higher  objects." 

Six  days  later  he  wrote  to  Lady  Holland :  — 

"  I  hear  you  laugh  at  me  for  being  haj^py  in  the  country, 
and  upon  this  I  have  a  few  words  to  say-  In  the  first  place, 
whether  one  lives  or  dies  I  hold,  and  have  always  held,  to  be 
of  infinitely  less  moment  than  is  generally  supposed.  But,  if 
life  is  to  be,  then  it  is  common  sense  to  amuse  yourself  with 
the  best  you  can  find  where  you  happen  to  be  placed.  I  am 
not  leading  precisely  the  life  I  should  choose,  but  that  which 

1  In  later  life  he  said  :  —  "If  you  shoot,  the  squire  and  the 
poacher  both  consider  you  as  their  natural  enemies,  and  I  thought 
it  more  clerical  to  be  at  peace  with  both." 


IV.]  rOSTON  81 

(all  things  considered,  as  well  as  I  could  consider  them) 
appeared  to  me  to  be  the  most  eligible.  I  am  resolved, 
therefore,  to  like  it,  and  to  reconcile  myself  to  it;  which  is 
more  manly  than  to  feign  myself  above  it,  and  to  send  up 
complaints  by  the  post,  of  being  thrown  away,  and  being- 
desolate,  and  such-like  trash.  I  am  prepared,  therefore,  either 
way.  If  the  chances  of  life  ever  enable  me  to  emerge,  I  will 
show  you  that  I  have  not  been  wholly  occupied  by  small  and 
sordid  pursuits.  If  (as  the  greater  probability)  I  am  come 
to  the  end  of  my  career,  I  give  myself  quietly  up  to  horticul- 
ture, etc.  In  short,  if  it  be  my  lot  to  crawl,  I  will  crawl  con- 
tentedly ;  if  to  fly,  I  will  fly  with  alacrity ;  but,  as  long  as  I 
can  possibly  avoid  it,  I  will  never  be  unhappy.  If,  with  a 
pleasant  wife,  three  children,  and  many  friends  who  wish  me 
well,  I  cannot  be  happy,  I  am  a  very  silly,  foolish  fellow,  and 
what  becomes  of  me  is  of  very  little  consequence." 

If  ample  occupation  be,  as  some  strenuous  moralists 
assert,  the  true  secret  of  happiness,  Sydney  Smith  had 
plenty  to  make  him  happy  during  the  early  years  of 
his  life  in  Yorkshire.  Here  is  his  own  account  of  his 
translation :  — 

"  A  diner-out,  a  wit,  and  a  popular  preacher,  I  was  sud- 
denly caught  up  by  the  Archbishop  of  York,  and  transported 
to  my  living  in  Yorkshire,  where  there  had  not  been  a  resi- 
dent clergyman  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Fresh  from 
London,  and  not  knowing  a  turnip  from  a  carrot,  I  was  com- 
pelled to  farm  three  hundred  acres,  and  without  capital  to 
build  a  Parsonage  House." 

He  was  his  own  architect,  his  own  builder,  and  his 
own  clerk  of  the  works.  The  cost  of  building  a  house, 
with  borrowed  money,  made  him  a  very  poor  man  for 
several  years. 

"I  turned  schoolmaster,  to  educate  my  son,  as  I  could  not 
afford  to  send  him  to  school.  INIrs.  Sydney  turned  school- 
mistress, to  educate  my  girls,  as  I  could  not  afford  a  gov- 

G 


82  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

erness.  I  turned  farmer,  as  I  could  not  let  my  land.  .  .  . 
Added  to  all  these  domestic  cares,  I  was  village  parson,  vil- 
lage doctor,  village  comforter,  village  magistrate,  and  Edin- 
burgh Reviewer;  so  you  see  I  had  not  much  time  on  my 
hands  to  regret  London." 

Every  one  has  heard  of  "  Bunch,"  the  "  little  garden- 
girl,  shaped  like  a  milestone,"  who  "  became  the  best 
butler  in  the  county " ;  of  the  gaunt  riding-horse 
"  Calamity,"  which  "  flung  me  over  his  head  into  a 
neighbouring  parish,  as  if  I  had  been  a  shuttlecock, 
and  I  felt  grateful  that  it  was  not  into  a  neighbouring 
planet " ;  and  of  the  ancient  carriage  called  "  the  Im- 
mortal," which  was  so  well  known  on  the  road  that 
"the  village-boys  cheered  it  and  the  village-dogs 
barked  at  it "  —  and  surely  remembrance  should  be 
made,  amid  this  goodly  caravan,  of  the  four  draught- 
oxen,  Tug  and  Lug,  Haul  and  Crawl,  even  though 
*'  Tug  and  Lug  took  to  fainting,  and  required  buckets 
of  salvolatile,  and  Haul  and  Crawl  to  lie  down  in  the 
mud." 

When  Sydney  Smith  says  that  he  was  "village 
doctor,"  he  reminds  us  of  his  lifelong  fancy  for  dab- 
bling in  medicine.  When  his  daughter,  not  six 
months  old,  was  attacked  by  croup,  he  gave  her  in 
twenty -four  hours  "  32  grains  of  calomel,  besides  bleed- 
ing, blistering,  and  emetics."  When  he  was  called 
to  baptize  a  sick  baby,  he  seized  the  opportunity  of 
giving  it  a  dose  of  castor  oil.     One  day  he  writes  — 

"  I  am  performing  miracles  in  my  parish  with  garlic  for 
whooping-cough." 

Another :  — 

"  We  conquered  the  whooping-cough  here  with  a  penny- 
worth of  salt  of  tartar,  after  having  filled  them  with  the 


IV.]  POSTON  83 

expensive  poisons  of  Halford.^  What  an  odd  thing  that 
such  a  specific  sliould  not  be  more  known  !  " 

"  I  attended  two  of  my  children  through  a  good  stout  fever 
of  the  typhus  kind  without  ever  calling  in  an  apothecary, 
but  for  one  day.  I  depended  upon  blessed  antimony,  and 
watched  anxiously  for  the  time  of  giving  bark." 

"Douglas 2  alarmed  us  the  other  night  with  the  Croup. 
I  darted  into  him  all  the  mineral  and  vegetable  resources 
of  my  shop,  cravatted  his  throat  with  blisters  and  fringed 
it  with  leeches,  and  set  him  in  five  or  six  hours  to  playing 
marbles,  breathing  gently  and  inaudibly." 

After  an  unhealthy  winter  he  writes :  — 

"  Our  evils  have  been  want  of  water,  and  scarlet-fever  in 
our  village ;  where,  in  three  quarters  of  a  year,  we  have  buried 
fifteen,  instead  of  one  per  annum.  You  will  naturally  sup- 
pose I  have  killed  all  these  people  by  doctoring  them ;  but 
scarlet-fever  awes  me,  and  is  above  my  aim.  I  leave  it  to 
the  professional  and  graduated  homicides."  ^ 

In  this  connexion  it  is  natural  to  cite  the  lines  on 

"The  Poetical  Medicine  Chest," ■*  which   Mr.    Stuart 

Reid  has  printed.    They  contain  some  excellent  advice 

about  the  drugs  which  a  mother  should  provide  for  the 

use  of  a  young  family,  and  end,  majestically,  thus :  — 

"  Spare  not  in  Eastern  blasts,  when  babies  die, 
The  wholesome  rigour  of  the  Spanish  Fly. 
From  timely  torture  seek  thy  infant's  rest. 
And  spread  the  poison  on  his  labouring  breast. 
And  so,  fair  lady,  when  in  evil  hour 
Less  prudent  mothers  mourn  some  faded  flower, 
Six  Howards  valiant,  and  six  Howards  fair 
Shall  live,  and  love  thee,  and  reward  thy  care." 

1  Sir  Henry  Halford,  Bart.,  M.D.  (1766-1844). 

2  His  eldest  son. 

3  Compare  —  "The  Sixth  Commandment  is  suspended,  by  one 
medical  diploma,  from  the  North  of  England  to  the  South."  — 
Essay  on  "  Persecuting  Bishops." 

4  Addressed  to  Mrs.  Henry  Howard. 


84  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

But  parochial  and  domestic  concerns  could  not 
altogether  divert  Sydney  Smith's  mind  from  the 
strife  of  politics.  He  watched  the  turmoil  from  afar. 
On  the  1st  of  January  1813,  he  wrote  to  his  friend 
John  Allen,  Avho  was  more  sanguine  than  himself  about 
the  prospects  of  the  Whigs  :  — 

"  Everytliing  is  fast  setting  in  for  arbitrary  power.  The 
Court  will  grow  bolder  and  bolder,  a  struggle  will  commence, 
and,  if  it  ends  as  I  wish,  there  will  be  Whigs  again.  .  .  .  But 
when  these  things  come  to  pass,  you  will  no  longer  be  a 
Warden, 1  but  a  brown  and  impalpable  powder  in  the  tombs 
of  Dulwich.  In  the  meantime,  enough  of  liberty  will  remain 
to  make  our  old-age  tolerably  comfortable  ;  and  to  your  last 
gasp  you  will  remain  in  the  perennial  and  pleasing  delusion 
that  the  Whigs  are  coming  in,  and  will  expire  mistaking  the 
officiating  clergyman  for  a  King's  Messenger." 

While  the  new  Eectory  House  at  Foston  was  build- 
ing, the  Rector  was  wholly  engrossed  in  the  work.  "  I 
live,"  he  wrote,  "trowel  in  hand.  My  whole  soul  is 
filled  up  by  lath  and  plaster.  He  laid  the  foundation- 
stone  in  June  1813,  and  took  possession  of  the  com- 
pleted edifice  in  March  1814.  "My  house  was 
considered  the  ugliest  in  the  county,  but  all  admitted 
that  it  was  one  of  the  most  comfortable."  ^  It  remains 
to  the  present  day  pretty  much  as  Sydney  Smith 
left  it.  A  room  on  the  ground-floor,  next  to  the 
drawing-room,  served  the  threefold  purposes  of  study, 
dispensary,  and  justice-room.  As  a  rule,  he  wrote 
his  sermons  and  his  articles  for  the  Edinburgh  in 
the  drawing-room,  not  heeding  the  conversation  of 
family  and  visitors ;  but   in   the  "  study "   he   dosed 

1  John  Allen  (1771-1843)  was  Warden  of  Dulwich  College. 

2  Macaulay  called  it  "  the  very  neatest,  most  commodious,  and 
most  appropriate  rectory  that  I  ever  saw." 


IV.]  rOSTON  85 

his  parishioners ;  and  here,  having  been  made  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace,  he  administered  mercy  to 
poachers.  He  hated  the  Game-Laws  as  they  stood, 
and  it  stirred  his  honest  wrath  to  reflect  that  "for 
every  ten  pheasants  which  fluttered  in  the  wood,  one 
English  peasant  was  rotting  in  gaoh"  So  strong  was 
his  belief  in  the  contaminating  effects  of  a  prisoner's 
life  that  he  never,  if  he  could  help  it,  would  commit 
a  boy  or  girl  to  gaol.  He  sought  permission  to  accom- 
pany Mrs.  Fry  on  one  of  her  visits  to  Newgate,  and 
spoke  of  her  ministry  there  as  "the  most  solemn,  the 
most  Christian,  the  most  affecting,  which  any  human 
eye  ever  witnessed."  ^  A  pleasing  trait  of  his  in- 
cumbency at  Foston  was  the  creation  of  allotment- 
gardens  for  the  poor.  He  divided  several  acres  of  the 
glebe  into  sixteenths,  and  let  them,  at  a  low  rent,  to 
the  villagers.  Each  allotment  was  just  big  enough  to 
supply  a  cottage  with  potatoes,  and  to  support  a  pig. 
Cheap  food  for  the  poor  was  another  of  his  excellent 
hobbies.  His  Common-Place  Book  contains  receipts 
for  nourishing  soups  made  of  rice  and  peas  and 
flavoured  with  ox-cheek.  He  notes  that  more  than 
thirty  people  were  comfortably  fed  with  these  con- 
coctions at  a  penny  a  head.  After  a  bad  harvest  he 
and  his  family  lived,  like  the  labourers  round  them,  on 
unleavened  cakes  made  from  the  damaged  flour  of  the 
sprouted  wheat.  His  daughter  writes  —  "  The  luxury 
of  returning  to  bread  again  can  hardly  be  imagined  by 
those  who  have  never  been  deprived  of  it." 

1  In  1818  he  writes  to  Lady  Maiy  Bennet  :  —  "I  am  glad  you 
liked  what  I  said  of  Mrs.  Fry.  She  is  veiy  unpnpuhir  with  the 
clerfty:  examples  of  living,  active  virtue  disturb  our  repose,  and 
give  birth  to  di.stressing  comparisons:  we  long  to  burn  her  alive." 


86  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

But,  in  spite  of  occasional  difficulties  of  this  descrip- 
tion, which  were  always  faced  and  overcome  with  in- 
vincible good-humour,  Sydney  Smith's  fifteen  years 
at  Foston  were  happily  and  profitably  spent.  He  was 
in  the  fulness  of  his  physical  and  intellectual  vigour. 
He  said  of  himself,  "  I  am  a  rough  writer  of  Sermons," 
but  his  energy  in  delivering  them  awoke  the  admira- 
tion of  his  sturdy  flock.  — 

"  When  I  began  to  thump  the  cushion  of  my  pulpit,  on  first 
coming  to  Foston,  as  is  my  wont  when  I  preach,  the  accumu- 
lated dust  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  made  such  a  cloud, 
that  for  some  minutes  I  lost  sight  of  my  congregation."  ^ 

His  Bible-class  for  boys  was  affectionately  remembered 
sixty  years  afterwards.^  By  his  constant  contributions 
to  the  Edinburgh,  he  was  both  helping  forward  the  great 
causes  in  which  he  most  earnestly  believed,  and  estab- 
lishing his  own  fame.  Good  health,  cheerfulness,  and 
contentment  reigned  in  the  Eectory,  which  might  well 
have  been  called  "A  Temple  of  Industrious  Peace."  ^ 

In  spite  of  some  small  irregularities  and  oddities  in 
the  furniture  of  the  house  and  the  arrangements  of  the 
establishment  —  all  of  which  the  Eector  habitually  and 
humorously  exaggerated  —  the  Kectory  was  an  ex- 
tremely comfortable  home.  It  was  so  constructed  as 
to  be  full  of  air,  light,  and  warmth.  The  Kector  said 
of  it :  — 

"  AVe  are  about  equal  to  a  second-rate  inn,  as  Mrs.  Sydney 
says ;  but  I  tliiuk  myself  we  are  equal  to  any  inn  on  the 
North  Road,  except  Ferrybridge." 


1  Macaulay  describes  Foston  Church  as  "  a  miserable  little  hovel 
with  a  wooden  belfry." 

2  As  testified  by  Mr.  Stuart  Reid. 

s  Carlyle's  description  of  Dr.  Arnold's  house  at  Rugby. 


IV.]  FOSTON  87 

The  larder  of  this  "  second-rate  inn  "  was  pleasantly 
supplied  by  the  kindness  of  faithful  friends. 

"  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  sending  me  the 
pheasants.  One  of  my  numerous  infirmities  is  a  love  of  eat- 
ing pheasants."  —  "  Many  thanks  for  two  fine  Gallicia  hams ; 
but,  as  for  boiling  them  in  wine,  I  am  not  as  yet  high  enough 
in  the  Church  for  that ;  so  they  must  do  the  best  they  can  in 
water."  —  "  Lord  Taukerville  has  sent  me  a  whole  buck ;  this 
necessarily  takes  up  a  good  deal  of  my  time.  Venison  is  an 
interesting  subject,  which  is  deemed  among  the  clergy  a 
professional  one."  —  "  Your  grouse  are  not  come  by  this  day's 
mail,  but  I  suppose  they  will  come  to-morrow.  Even  the 
rumour  of  grouse  is  agreeable."  —  "  Lord  Lauderdale  has  sent 
me  two  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  of  salt  fish."  —  "  You  have 
no  idea  what  a  number  of  handsome  things  were  said  of  you 
when  your  six  partridges  were  consumed  to-day.  Wit,  lit- 
erature, and  polished  manners  were  ascribed  to  you  —  some 
good  quality  for  each  bird."  —  "  What  is  real  piety?  What 
is  true  attachment  to  the  Church?  How  are  these  fine  feel- 
ings best  evinced?  The  answer  is  plain — by  sending  straw- 
berries to  a  clergyman.    Many  thanks." 

To  the  hostelry,  thus  well  victualled,  and  called  by 
its  owner  "The  Rector's  Head,"  many  interesting 
visitors  found  their  way.  Lord  and  Lady  Holland, 
Miss  Fox,  Miss  Vernon,  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  Sir 
Humphry  Davy,  Samuel  Rogers,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Marcet, 
and  Francis  Jeffrey  were  among  the  earliest  guests. 
"Mrs.  Sydney  was  dreadfully  alarmed  about  her 
side-dishes  the  first  time  Luttrell  ^  paid  us  a  visit,  and 
grew  pale  as  the  covers  were  lifted;  but  they  stood 
the  test.     Luttrell  tasted  and  praised." 

The  neighbours  of  w'hom  the  Smiths  saw  most 
were  Lord  and  Lady  Carlisle,^  who  drove  over  from 

1  Henry  Luttrell  (1765-183.5),  wit  and  epicure. 

2  Frederick,  5tli  Earl  of  Carlisle  (1748-1825)  married  Lady 
Margaret  Caroline  Leveson-Gower. 


88  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Castle  Howard^  in  a  coach-and-four  with  outriders,  and 
were  upset  in  a  ploughed  held  ;  their  son  and  daughter- 
in-law,  Lord  and  Lady  Georgiana  Morpeth,  who  with 
their  children  made  "  no  mean  part  of  the  population 
of  Yorkshire "  ;  and  the  Archbishop  of  York,  who 
became  one  of  the  Smiths'  kindest  and  most  faithful 
friends.  Every  year  Sydney  paid  a  visit  to  London, 
receiving  the  warmest  of  welcomes  from  all  his  old 
associates.  In  1821  he  revisited  his  friends  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  going  or  coming  he  visited  Lord  Grey 
at  Howick,  Lord  Tankerville  at  Chillingham,  Lord 
Lauderdale  at  Dunbar,  and  Mr.  Lambton,  afterwards 
Lord  Durham,  at  Lambton.  At  Chillingham  he  duly 
admired  the  beef  supplied  by  the  famous  herd  of  wild 
cattle,  but  he  admired  still  more  the  magnificent 
novelty  of  gas  at  Lambton.  — 

"  What  use  of  wealth  so  luxurious  and  delightful  as  to  light 
your  house  with  gas?  What  folly  to  have  a  diamond  neck- 
lace or  a  Correggio,  and  not  to  light  your  house  with  gas ! 
The  splendour  and  glory  of  Lambton  Hall  make  all  other 
houses  mean.  How  pitiful  to  submit  to  a  farthing-candle 
existence,  when  science  puts  such  intense  gratification  within 
your  reach !  Dear  lady,  spend  all  your  fortune  in  a  gas- 
apparatus.  Better  to  eat  dry  bread  by  the  splendour  of  gas, 
than  to  dine  on  wild  beef  with  wax  candles  !  " 

Another  friend  whom  the  Smiths  visited  regularly 
was  Mr.,  afterwards  Sir  George,  Philips,  an  opulent 
cotton-spinner  of  Manchester.  Once,  when  staying 
with  Philips,  Sydney  undertook  to  preach  a  Charity 
Sermon  in  Prestwich  Church,  and  with  reference  to 
this  he  wrote  in  the  previous  week :  "  I  desire  to  make 

1  In  old  age  Sydney  Smith  wrote  — "Castle  Howard  befriended 
me  when  I  wanted  friends:  I  shall  never  forget  it  till  I  forget 
all." 


IV.]  rOSTON  89 

three  or  foiir  hundred  weavers  cry,  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  do  since  the  late  rise  in  cottons." 
Writing  from  Philips's  house  in  1820  he  says :  — 

"  Philips  doubles  his  capital  twice  a  week.  We  talk  much 
of  cotton,  more  of  the  tine  arts,  as  he  has  lately  returned  from 
Italy,  and  purchased  some  pictures  which  were  sent  out  from 
Piccadilly  on  pvirpose  to  intercept  him." 

His  daughter  tells  us  that,  during  these  years  of 
small  income  and  large  expenses,  her  father  never 
bought  any  books.  He  had  brought  a  small  but  service- 
able library  with  him  from  London,  and  his  friends 
made  additions  to  it  from  time  to  time.  He  wrote  to 
a  friend  in  1810 :  — 

"  I  have  read,  since  I  saw  you,  Burke's  works,  some  books 
of  Homer,  Suetonius,  a  great  deal  of  agricultural  reading,  God- 
win's Enquirer,  and  a  great  deal  of  Adam  Smith.  As  I  have 
scarcely  looked  at  a  book  for  five  years,  I  am  rather  hungry." 

Here  are  some  of  the  plans  which,  year  by  year,  he 
laid  down  for  the  regulation  of  his  studies :  — 


•'O^ 


"  Translate  every  day  ten  lines  of  the  De  Officiis,  and 
re-translate  into  Latin.  Five  chapters  of  Greek  Testament. 
Theological  studies.  Plato's  Ajyolocjij  for  Socrates  ;  Horace's 
Epodes,  Epistles,  Satires,  and  Ars  Poetica." 

"  Write  sermons  and  reviews,  Monday,  Wednesday,  and 
Friday.  Read,  Tuesday,  Thursday,  Saturday.  Write  ten 
lines  of  Latin  on  writing  days.  Read  five  chapters  of  Greek 
Testament  on  reading  days.  For  morning  reading,  either 
Polybius,  or  Diodorus  Siculus,  or  some  tracts  of  Xenophon 
or  Plato ;  and  for  Latin,  Catullus,  Tibulhis,  and  Propertius. 

"  Monday :  write,  morning ;  read  Tasso,  evening.  Tuesday : 
Latin  or  Greek,  morning;  evening,  theology-  Wednesday, 
same  as  IMonday.  Friday,  ditto.  Thursday  and  Saturday, 
same  as  Tuesday.  Read  every  day  a  chapter  in  Greek 
Testament,  and  translate  ten  lines  of  Latin.     Good  books  to 


90  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

read :  —  Terrasson's  History  of  Roman  Jurisprudence ;  Bishop 
of  Chester's  Records  of  the  Creation." 

His  daughter  says  that  he  read  with  great  rapidity. 
"He  galloped  through  the  pages  so  rapidly  that  we 
often  laughed  at  him  when  he  shut  up  a  thick  quarto 
as  his  morning's  work.  '  Cross-examine  me,  then,'  he 
said;  and  we  generally  found  that  he  knew  all  that 
was  worth  knowing  in  it."  Here,  obviously,  is  the 
stuff  out  of  which  reviewers  are  made,  and  this  was 
the  very  zenith  of  Sydney  Smith's  power  and  useful- 
ness in  the  Edinburgh  Review. 

He  wrote  as  quickly  as  he  read.  When  once  he 
had  amassed  the  necessary  facts,  he  sate  down  amid  all 
the  distracting  sights  and  sounds  of  a  drawing-room 
crowded  with  femininity,  and  wrote  at  full  speed, 
without  deliberations,  embellishments,  or  erasures ; 
only  betraying  by  the  movements  of  his  expressive 
face  his  amusement  and  interest  "  as  fresh  images  came 
clustering  round  his  pen."  As  soon  as  the  essay  was 
finished,  he  would  throw  it  on  the  table,  saying  to  his 
wife,  "There,  Kate,  just  look  it  over — dot  the  i's  and 
cross  the  fs  " ;  and  went  out  for  his  walk.  It  should 
be  added  that  his  writing  was  singularly  difficult  to 
read,  that  he  was  very  infirm  about  spelling  proper 
names,  and  that  he  was  exceptionally  careless  in 
correcting  his  proofs. 

Of  those  essays  which  he  subsequently  reprinted,  as 
judging  them  most  worthy  of  preservation,  I  see  that 
by  1821  he  had  written  fifty.  Among  these  were  such 
masterpieces  of  humour  and  argument  as  "  Edgeworth 
on  Bulls,"  "  Methodism,"  "  Indian  Missions,"  "  Hannah 
More,"  "Public  Schools,"  "America,"  "Game-Laws" 
and  "Botany  Bay."     On  the  19th  of  May  1820,  he 


I 


IV.]  "PERSECUTING  BISHOPS"  91 

wrote,  "I  found  in  London  botli  my  articles  very 
popular  —  upon  the  Poor-Laws  and  America.  The  pas- 
sage on  Taxation  had  great  success."  ^  Some  of  these 
papers  will  be  considered  separately,  when  we  come  to 
discuss  his  style  and  his  opinions;  but  space  must 
here  be  found  for  an  unrivalled  specimen  of  his  contro- 
versial method,  which  belongs  to  the  year  1822.  It  is 
called  ''  Persecuting  Bishops."  "  Is  Bisliops  in  that 
title  a  nominative  or  an  accusative?  "  grimly  inquired  a 
living  prelate,  when  the  present  writer  was  extolling  the 
essay  so  named.  It  is  a  nominative ;  and  perhaps  the 
exacter  title  would  have  been  '^  A  Persecuting  Bishop." 
Herbert  Marsh  ^  was  Second  Wrangler  in  1779, 
Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  Margaret 
Professor  of  Divinity,  Bishop  of  Llandaff  from  1816 
to  1819,  and  of  Peterborough  from  1819  till  his  death. 
He  was  a  "High  Churchman  of  the  old  school"  — 
perhaps  the  most  unpleasant  type  of  theologian  in 
Christendom.  We  know,  from  the  Life  of  Father 
"  Ignatius  "  Spencer,^  that  Bishop  Marsh  played  whist 
with  his  candidates  for  Orders  on  the  eve  of  the  ordi- 
nation, and  all  that  we  read  about  him  beautifully 
illustrates  that  tone  of  "quiet  worldliness"  which 
Dean  Church  described  as  the  characteristic  of  the 
English  clergy  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  But  what  he  lacked  in  personal  devotion  he 
made  up  (as  some  have  done  since  his  day)  by  furious 
hostility  to  spiritual  and  religious  enthusiasm  in 
others.  He  opposed  the  civil  claims  alike  of  Roman 
Catholics  and  of  Dissenters.  He  attacked  the  Bible 
Society.     He  denounced  Charles  Simeon.     He  insulted 

1  See  Appendix  B.  2  (1757-1839). 

8  The  Hon.  and  Rev.  George  Spencer  (1799-1864). 


92  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

Isaac  Milner ;  and  lie  determined  to  purge  his  diocese 
of  Evangelicalism  (which,  oddly  enough,  he  seems  to 
have  identified  with  Calvinism).     His  manly  resolve 
to  stifle  religious  earnestness  culminated  in  the  year 
1820,  when  he  drew  up  a  set  of  eighty-seven  questions, 
which  he  proposed  to  every  candidate  for  Orders,  and 
to  every  clergyman  who  sought  his  license  to  officiate. 
Failure  to  answer  these  questions  to  the  Bishop's  sat- 
isfaction was  to  be  punished  by  exclusion  from  the 
diocese  of  Peterborough.      Happily,  the  Evangelical 
clergy  of  that  period  was  very  little  disposed  to  sit 
down  under  Episcopal  tyranny.      The    Bishop's   set 
of  questions  was   met  by  a  hailstorm  of  pamphlets. 
Petitions  for  redress  were  poured  into  the  House  of 
Lords.      The  Bishop  was  forced  into  the  open,  and 
constrained  to  make  the  best  defence  he  could  in  a 
published  speech.     In  November  1822,  Sydney  Smith, 
in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  came  to  the  assistance  of  his 
brother-clergy  against  the  high-handed  tyranny  of  the 
Persecuting  Bishop. 

The  reviewer  begins  by  giving  the  Bishop  credit  for 
good  intentions ;  but  maintains  that  his  conduct  has 
been  — 

"  singularly  injudicious,  extremely  harsh,  and  in  its  effects 
(though  not  in  its  intentions)  very  oppressive  and  vexatious 
to  the  clergy.  .  .  .  We  cannot  believe  that  we  are  doing 
wrong  in  ranging  oiu'selves  on  the  weaker  side,  in  the  cause 
of  propriety  and  justice.  The  Mitre  protects  its  wearer  from 
indignity;  but  it  does  not  secure  impunity." 

After  this  preface  Sydney  Smith  goes  on  to  develop 
his  argument  against  the  Bishop,  and  he  starts  with 
the  highly  reasonable  proposition  that  a  man  is  pre- 
sumably wrong  when  all  his  friends,  whose  habits  and 


IV.]  "PERSECUTING  BISHOPS"  93 

interests  would  naturally  lead  them  to  side  with  him, 
think  him  wrong.  — 

"If  a  man  were  to  indulge  in  taking  medicine  till  the 
apothecary,  the  druggist,  and  the  physician  all  called  upon 
him  to  abandon  his  philocathartic  propensities  —  if  he  were  to 
gratify  his  convivial  habits  till  the  landlord  demurred  and  the 
waiter  shook  his  head  —  we  should  naturally  imagine  that 
advice  so  disinterested  was  not  given  before  it  was  wanted." 

The  Bishop  of  Peterborough  has  all  his  brother- 
bishops  against  him,  tliough  they  certainly  love  power 
as  well  as  he.  Not  one  will  defend  him  in  debate ; 
not  one  will  allege  that  he  has  acted  or  would  act  as 
Peterborough  has  acted. 

Then,  again,  the  bishop  who  refuses  to  license  a 
curate  unless  he  satisfactorily  answers  Eighty-Seven 
Questions,  thereby  puts  himself  in  opposition  to  the 
bishop  who  ordained  the  curate.  One  standard  of 
orthodoxy  is  established  in  one  diocese;  another  in 
another.  The  theological  system  of  the  Church 
becomes  local  and  arbitrary  instead  of  national  and 
fixed. — 

"  If  a  man  is  a  captain  in  the  army  in  one  part  of  England, 
he  is  a  captain  in  all.  The  general  who  commands  north 
of  the  Tweed  does  not  say,  '  You  shall  never  appear  in  my 
district,  or  exercise  the  functions  of  an  officer,  if  you  do  not 
answer  eighty-seven  questions  on  the  art  of  war,  according  to 
my  notions.'  The  same  officer  who  commands  a  ship  of  the 
line  in  the  Mediterranean  is  considered  as  equal  to  the  same 
office  in  the  North  Seas.  The  Sixth  Commandment  is  sus- 
pended by  one  medical  diploma  from,  the  North  of  England  to 
the  Souths  But,  by  the  new  system  of  interrogation,  a  man 
maybe  admitted  into  Orders  at  Barnet,  rejected  at  Stevenage, 
readmitted  at  Buckden,  kicked  out  as  a  Calvinist  at  Witham 

1  See  p.  83. 


94  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Common,  and  hailed  as  an  ardent  Arminian  on  his  arrival 
at  York." 

The  Bishop's  reply  to  the  charges  brought  against 
him  evinces  surprise  that  any  one  should  have  the 
hardihood  to  criticize  or  to  resist  him;  and  yet,  the 
reviewer  asks,  to  what  purpose  has  he  read  his  eccle- 
siastical history,  if  he  expects  anything  except  the 
most  strenuous  opposition  to  his  tyranny?  — 

"  Does  he  think  that  every  sturdy  Supralapsarian  bullock 
whom  he  tries  to  sacrifice  to  the  Genius  of  Orthodoxy  will 
not  kick,  and  push,  and  toss;  that  he  will  not,  if  he  can, 
shake  the  axe  from  his  neck,  and  hurl  his  mitred  butcher  into 
the  air?  We  know  these  men  fully  as  well  as  the  Bishop; 
he  has  not  a  chance  of  success  against  them.  They  will 
ravage,  roar,  and  rush  till  the  very  chaplains,  and  the  Masters 
and  Misses  Peterborough,  request  his  lordship  to  desist.  He 
is  raising  a  storm  in  the  English  Church  of  which  he  has  not 
the  slightest  conception,  and  which  will  end,  as  it  ought  to 
end,  in  his  lordship's  disgrace  and  defeat." 

Then  the  reviewer  goes  on  to  urge  that  discretion 
and  common  sense,  good  nature  and  good  manners, 
are  qualities  far  more  valuable  in  bishops  than  any 
"vigilance  of  inquisition."  Prelates  of  the  type  of 
Bishop  Marsh  are  the  most  dangerous  enemies  of  the 
Establishment  which  they  profess  to  serve.  — 

"  Six  such  Bishops,  multiplied  by  eighty-seven,  and  working 
with  five  hundred  and  twenty-two  questions,  would  fetch 
everything  to  the  ground  in  six  months.  But  what  if  it 
pleased  Divine  Providence  to  afflict  every  prelate  with  the 
spirit  of  putting  eighty-seven  questions,  and  the  two  Arch- 
bishops with  the  spirit  of  putting  twice  as  many,  and  the 
Bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man  with  the  spirit  of  putting  forty-three 
questions  ?  There  would  then  be  a  grand  total  of  two  thousand 
three  hundred  and  thirty-five  interrogations  flying  about  the 


IV.]  "PERSECUTING  BISHOPS"  95 

English  Church,  and  sorely  vexed  would  be  the  land  with 
Question  and  Answer.  ...  If  eighty-seven  questions  are 
assumed  to  be  necessary  by  one  bishop,  eight  hundred  may 
be  considered  as  the  minimum  of  interrogation  by  another. 
When  once  the  ancient  faith-marks  of  the  Church  are  lost 
sight  of  and  despised,  any  misled  theologian  may  launch  out 
on  the  boundless  sea  of  polemical  vexation." 

The  Bishop's  main  line  of  defence,  when  challenged 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  was  that  he  had  a  legal  right 
to  do  what  he  had  done.  This  was  not  disputed.  "  A 
man  may  persevere  in  doing  what  he  has  a  right  to 
do  till  the  Chancellor  shuts  him  up  in  Bedlam,  or  till 
the  mob  pelts  him  as  he  passes."  But  the  reviewer 
reminds  him  that  he  has  no  similar  right  as  against 
clergymen  presented  to  benefices  in  his  diocese.  They 
are  protected  by  the  patron's  action  of  Quare  Impedit ; 
and  all  considerations  of  honour,  decency,  and  common 
sense  should  restrain  the  Bishop  from  *'  letting  himself 
loose  against  the  working  man  of  God,"  and  enforcing 
against  the  curate  a  system  of  inquisition  which  he 
dare  not  apply  to  the  incumbent.  — 

"  Prelates  are  fond  of  talking  about  my  see,  my  clergy,  my 
diocese,  as  if  these  things  belonged  to  them  as  their  pigs  and 
dogs  belonged  to  them.  They  forget  that  the  clergy,  the 
diocese,  and  the  bishops  themselves,  all  exist  only  for  the 
public  good ;  that  the  public  are  a  third  and  principal  party 
in  the  whole  concern.  It  is  not  simply  the  tormenting  bishop 
against  the  tormented  curate ;  but  the  public  against  the 
system  of  tormenting,  as  tending  to  bring  scandal  upon 
religion  and  religious  men.  By  the  late  alteration  in  the 
laws,^  the  Labourers  in  the  vineyard  are  given  up  to  the 
power  of  the  Inspector  of  the  vineyard.  If  he  has  the  mean- 
ness and  malice  to  do  so,  an  Inspector  may  worry  and  plague 

1  The  Residence  Act,  1817. 


96  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

to  death  any  Labourer  against  whom  he  may  have  conceived 
an  antipathy.  .  .  .  Men  of  very  small  incomes  have  often 
very  acute  feelings,  and  a  curate  trod  on  feels  a  pang  as 
great  as  a  bishop  refuted." 

Another  of  the  Bishop's  ways  of  defending  himself 
was  to  boast  that,  in  spite  of  all  his  interrogations,  he 
has  actually  excluded  only  two  curates  from  his  dio- 
cese :  and  this  boast  supplies  the  reviewer  with  one 
of  his  best  apologues.  "  So  the  Emperor  of  Hayti 
boasted  that  he  had  only  cut  off  two  persons'  heads 
for  disagreeable  behaviour  at  his  table.  In  spite  of 
the  paucity  of  the  visitors  executed,  the  example  oper- 
ated as  a  considerable  impediment  to  conversation ;  and 
the  intensity  of  the  punishment  was  found  to  be  a  full 
compensation  for  its  rarity." 

In  conclusion,  the  reviewer  says :  — ''  Now  we  have 
done  with  the  Bishop.  .  .  .  Our  only  object  in  med- 
dling with  the  question  is  to  restrain  the  arm  of  Power 
within  the  limits  of  moderation  and  justice  —  one  of 
the  great  objects  which  first  led  to  the  establishment 
of  this  journal,  and  which,  we  hope,  will  always  con- 
tinue to  characterize  its  efforts." 

To  this  period  also  belong  two  splendid  discourses 
on  the  principles  of  Christian  Justice,  which  Sydney 
Smith,  as  Chaplain  to  the  High  Sheriff,  preached  in 
York  Minster  at  the  Spring  and  Summer  Assizes  of 
1824.  The  first  is  styled  "The  Judge  that  smites 
contrary  to  the  Law."  ^ 

At  the  outset,  the  preacher  thus  defines  his 
ground :  — 

"  I  take  these  words  of  St.  Paul  as  a  condemnation  of  that 
1  Acts  xxiii.  3. 


IV.]  BENCH  AND  BAR  97 

man  who  smites  contrary  to  the  law ;  as  a  praise  of  that  man 
who  judges  according  to  the  law ;  as  a  religious  theme  upon 
the  importance  of  human  Justice  to  the  happiness  of  man- 
kind :  and,  if  it  be  that  theme,  it  is  appropriate  to  this  place, 
and  to  the  solemn  public  duties  of  the  past  and  the  ensuing 
week,  over  which  some  here  present  will  preside,  at  which 
many  here  present  will  assist,  and  which  almost  all  here 
present  will  witness." 

A  Christian  Judge  in  a  free  land  must  sedulously 
guard  himself  against  the  entanglements  of  Party. 
He  must  be  careful  to  maintain  his  independence  by 
seeking  no  promotion  and  asking  no  favours  from 
those  who  govern.  It  may  often  be  his  duty  to  stand 
between  the  governors  and  the  governed,  and  in  that 
case  his  hopes  of  advantage  may  be  found  on  one  side, 
and  his  sense  of  duty  on  another.  At  such  a  crisis 
he  is  trebly  armed,  if  he  is  able  from  his  heart  to  say 
—  "I  have  vowed  a  vow  before  God.  I  have  put  on 
the  robe  of  justice.  Farewell  avarice,  farewell  ambi- 
tion. Pass  me  who  will,  slight  me  who  will,  I  will 
live  henceforward  only  for  the  great  duties  of  life. 
My  business  is  on  earth.  My  hope  and  my  reward 
are  with  God." 

"  He  who  takes  the  office  of  a  Judge  as  it  now  exists  in  this 
country,  takes  in  his  hands  a  splendid  gem,  good  and  glorious, 
perfect  and  pure.  Shall  he  give  it  up  mutilated,  shall  he  mar 
it,  shall  he  darken  it,  shall  it  emit  no  light,  shall  it  be  valued 
at  no  price,  shall  it  excite  no  wonder?  Shall  he  find  it  a 
diamond,  shall  he  leave  it  a  stone?  What  shall  we  say  to  the 
man  who  would  wilfully  destroy  with  fire  the  magnificent 
temple  of  God,  in  which  I  am  now  preaching  ?  Far  worse  is 
he  who  ruins  the  moral  edifices  of  the  world,  which  time  and 
toil,  and  many  prayers  to  God,  and  many  sufferings  of  men, 
have  reared  ;  who  puts  out  the  light  of  the  times  in  which  he 
lives,  and  leaves  us  to  wander  amid  the  darkness  of  corruption 


98  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

and  the  desolation  of  sin.  There  may  be,  there  probably  is, 
in  this  church,  some  young  man  who  may  hereafter  fill  the 
office  of  an  English  Judge,  when  the  greater  part  of  those  who 
hear  me  are  dead,  and  mingled  with  the  dust  of  the  grave. 
Let  him  remember  my  words,  and  let  them  form  and  fashion 
his  spirit :  he  cannot  tell  in  what  dangerous  and  awful  times 
he  may  be  placed ;  but  as  a  mariner  looks  to  his  compass  in 
the  calm,  and  looks  to  his  compass  in  the  storm,  and  never 
keeps  his  eyes  off  his  compass,  so  in  every  vicissitude  of  a 
judicial  life,  deciding  for  the  people,  deciding  against  the 
people,  protecting  the  just  rights  of  kings,  or  restraining  theu- 
unlawful  ambition,  let  him  ever  cling  to  that  pure,  exalted, 
and  Christian  independence,  which  towers  over  the  little 
motives  of  life ;  which  no  hope  of  favour  can  influence,  which 
no  effort  of  power  can  control. 

"  A  Christian  Judge  in  a  free  country  should  respect,  on 
every  occasion,  those  popular  institutions  of  Justice,  which 
were  intended  for  his  control,  and  for  our  security.  To  see 
humble  men  collected  accidentally  from  the  neighbourhood, 
treated  with  tenderness  and  courtesy  by  supreme  magistrates 
of  deep  learning  and  practised  understanding,  from  whose 
views  they  are  perhaps  at  that  moment  differing,  and  whose 
directions  they  do  not  choose  to  follow ;  to  see  at  such  times 
every  disposition  to  warmth  restrained,  and  every  tendency  to 
contemptuous  feeling  kept  back  ;  to  witness  the  submission  of 
the  great  and  wise,  not  when  it  is  extorted  by  necessity,  but 
when  it  is  practised  with  willingness  and  grace,  is  a  spectacle 
which  is  very  grateful  to  Englishmen,  which  no  other  country 
sees,  which,  above  all  things,  shows  that  a  Judge  has  a  pure, 
gentle,  and  Christian  heart,  and  that  he  never  wishes  to  smite 
contrary  to  the  law. 

'•  A  Christian  Judge  who  means  to  be  just  must  not  fear  to 
smite  according  to  the  law ;  he  must  remember  that  he  beareth 
not  the  sword  in  vain.  Under  his  protection  we  live,  under 
his  protection  we  acquire,  under  his  protection  we  enjoy. 
Without  him,  no  man  would  defend  his  character,  no  man 
would  preserve  his  substance.  Proper  pride,  just  gains, 
valuable  exertions,  all  depend  upon  his  firm  wisdom.  If  he 
shrink  from  the  severe  duties  of  his  office,  he  saps  the  founda- 


IV.]  BENCH  AND  BAR  99 

tion  of  social  life,  betrays  the  highest  interests  of  the  "world, 
and  sits  not  to  judge  according  to  the  law." 

But  Justice,  if  it  is  to  be  truly  just,  must  be 
tempered  by  mercy,  and  must  have  a  scrupulous 
regard  to  the  strength  of  temptation,  the  moral 
weakness  of  the  subject,  the  degrading  power  of 
ignorance  and  poverty.  — 

"  All  magistrates  feel  these  things  in  the  early  exercise 
of  their  judicial  power ;  but  the  Christian  Judge  always  feels 
them,  is  always  youthful,  always  tender,  when  he  is  going  to 
shed  human  blood ;  retires  from  the  business  of  men,  com- 
munes with  his  own  heart,  ponders  on  the  work  of  death,  and 
prays  to  that  Saviour  who  redeemed  him  that  he  may  not 
shed  the  blood  of  man  in  vain." 

A  pure,  secure,  and  even-handed  administration  of 
Justice  is  the  strongest  safeguard  of  national  stability 
and  happiness.  — 

"  The  whole  tone  and  tenor  of  public  morals  is  affected  by 
the  state  of  supreme  Justice ;  it  extinguishes  revenge,  it 
communicates  a  spirit  of  purity  and  uprightness  to  inferior 
magistrates ;  it  makes  the  great  good,  by  taking  away  im- 
punity; it  banishes  fraud,  obliquity,  and  solicitation,  and 
teaches  men  that  the  law  is  their  right.  Truth  is  its  handmaid, 
freedom  is  its  child,  peace  is  its  companion ;  safety  walks  in 
its  steps,  victory  follows  in  its  train  :  it  is  the  brightest  emana- 
tion of  the  Gospel,  it  is  the  greatest  attribute  of  God  :  it  is 
that  centre  round  which  human  motives  and  passions  turn : 
and  Justice,  sitting  on  high,  sees  Genius  and  Power,  and 
Wealth  and  Birth,  revolving  round  her  throne ;  and  teaches 
their  paths  and  marks  out  their  orbits,  and  warns  with  a  loud 
voice,  and  rules  with  a  strong  arm,  and  carries  order  and 
discipline  into  a  world,  which  but  for  her  would  only  be  a 
wild  waste  of  passions.  Look  what  we  are,  and  what  just  laws 
have  done  for  us  :  —  a  land  of  piety  and  charity ;  —  a  land  of 
churches,   and   hospitals,   and  altars ;  —  a  nation  of  good 


100  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Samaritans;  —  a  people  of  universal  compassion.  All  lands, 
all  seas,  have  heaxxl  we  are  brave.  We  have  just  sheathed 
that  sword  which  defended  the  world;  we  have  just  laid  down 
that  buckler  which  covered  the  nations  of  the  earth.  God 
blesses  the  soil  with  fertility ;  English  looms  labour  for  every 
climate.  All  the  waters  of  the  globe  are  covered  with  English 
ships.  We  are  softened  by  fine  arts,  civilized  by  humane 
literature,  instructed  by  deep  science ;  and  every  people,  as 
they  break  their  feudal  chains,  look  to  the  founders  and 
fathers  of  freedom  for  examples  which  may  animate,  and 
rules  which  may  guide.  If  ever  a  nation  was  happy,  if  ever 
a  nation  was  visibly  blessed  by  God  —  if  ever  a  nation  was 
honoured  abroad,  and  left  at  home  under  a  government  (which 
we  can  now  conscientiously  call  a  liberal  government)  to  the 
full  career  of  talent,  industry,  and  vigour,  we  are  at  this 
moment  that  people  —  and  this  is  our  happy  lot.  —  Fii-st  the 
Gospel  has  done  it,  and  then  Justice  has  done  it ;  and  he  who 
thinks  it  his  duty  to  labour  that  this  happy  condition  of 
existence  may  remain,  must  guard  the  piety  of  these  times, 
and  he  must  watch  over  the  spirit  of  Justice  which  exists  in 
these  times.  First,  he  must  take  care  that  the  altars  of  God 
are  not  polluted,  that  the  Christian  faith  is  retained  in  purity 
and  in  perfection  :  and  then  turning  to  human  affairs,  let  him 
strive  for  spotless,  incorruptible  Justice ;  —  praising,  honour- 
ing, and  loving  the  just  Judge,  and  abhorring,  as  the  worst 
enemy  of  mankind,  him  who  is  placed  there  to  'judge  after 
the  law,  and  who  smites  contrary  to  the  law.'  " 

The  second  of  these  sermons  is  called  ''  The  Lawyer 
that  tempted  Christ."  ^  The  preacher  begins  by  point- 
ing out  that  the  Lawyer  who,  in  the  hope  of  entangling 
the  new  Teacher,  asked  what  he  should  do  to  inherit 
eternal  life,  received  a  very  plain  answer  —  "  not  flowery, 
not  metaphysical,  not  doctrinal."  The  answer  was,  in 
effect,  thus :  "  If  you  wish  to  live  eternally,  do  your 
duty  to  God  and  man."     Whereas  the  earlier  sermon 

1  St.  Luke  X.  25. 


IV.]  BENCH  AND  BAR  101 

was  addressed  to  the  Bench,  this  is  addressed,  very 
directly  indeed,  to  the  Bar. 

"  There  are  probably  in  this  church  many  persons  of  the 
profession  of  the  law,  who  have  often  asked  before,  with 
better  faith  than  their  brother,  and  who  do  now  ask  this 
great  question,  '  What  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life?'  I 
shall,  therefore,  direct  to  them  some  observations  on  the  par- 
ticular duties  they  owe  to  society,  because  I  think  it  suitable 
to  this  particular  season,  because  it  is  of  much  more  impor- 
tance to  tell  men  how  they  are  to  be  Christians  in  detail,  than 
to  exhort  them  to  be  Christians  generally ;  because  it  is  of 
the  highest  utility  to  avail  ourselves  of  these  occasions,  to 
show  to  classes  of  mankind  what  those  virtues  are,  which 
they  have  more  frequent  and  valuable  opportunities  of  jrirac- 
tising,  and  what  those  faults  and  vices  are,  to  which  they 
are  more  particularly  exposed. 

"  It  falls  to  the  lot  of  those  who  are  engaged  in  the  active 
and  arduous  profession  of  the  law  to  i^ass  their  lives  in  great 
cities,  amidst  severe  and  incessant  occupation,  requiring  all 
the  faculties,  and  calling  forth,  from  time  to  time,  many  of 
the  strongest  passions  of  our  nature.  In  the  midst  of  all  this, 
rivals  are  to  be  watched,  superiors  are  to  be  cultivated,  con- 
nexions cherished;  some  portion  of  life  must  be  given  to 
society,  and  some  little  to  relaxation  and  amusement.  When, 
then,  is  the  question  to  be  asked, '  What  shall  I  do  to  inherit 
eternal  life?'  what  leisure  for  the  altar,  what  time  for  God? 
I  appeal  to  the  experience  of  men  engaged  in  this  profession, 
whether  religious  feelings  and  religious  practices  are  not, 
without  any  speculative  disbelief,  perpetually  sacrificed  to 
the  business  of  the  world?  Are  not  the  habits  of  devotion 
gradually  displaced  by  other  habits  of  solicitude,  hurry,  and 
care  ?  Is  not  the  taste  for  devotion  lessened  ?  Is  not  the  time 
for  devotion  abridged?  Are  you  not  more  and  more  con- 
quered against  your  warnings  and  against  your  will ;  not,  per- 
haps, without  pain  and  compunction,  by  the  Mammon  of  life  ? 
And  what  is  the  cure  for  this  great  evil  to  which  your  profes- 
sion exposes  you?  The  cure  is,  to  keep  a  sacred  place  in  your 
heart,  where  Almighty  God  is  enshrined,  and  where  nothing 


102  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

human  can  enter ;  to  say  to  the  world,  '  Thus  far  shalt  thou 
go,  and  no  further  ' ;  to  remember  you  are  a  lawyer,  without 
forgetting  you  are  a  Christian ;  to  wish  for  no  more  wealth 
than  ought  to  be  possessed  by  an  inheritor  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  ;  to  covet  no  more  honour  than  is  suitable  to  a  child 
of  God ;  boldly  and  bravely  to  set  yourseK  limits,  and  to  show 
to  others  jou  have  limits,  and  that  no  professional  eagerness, 
and  no  professional  activity,  shall  ever  induce  you  to  infringe 
upon  the  rules  and  practices  of  religion  :  remember  the  text ; 
put  the  great  question  really,  which  the  tempter  of  Christ 
only  pretended  to  put.  In  the  midst  of  your  highest  success, 
in  the  most  perfect  gratification  of  your  vanity,  in  the  most 
ample  increase  of  your  wealth,  fall  down  at  the  feet  of  Jesus, 
and  say,  '  Master,  what  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life  V '  " 

The  advocate's  duty  to  his  client,  with  its  resulting 
risk  to  the  advocate's  own  conscience,  is  thus  set 
forth :  — 

"  Justice  is  found,  experimentally,  to  be  most  effectually 
promoted  by  the  opposite  efforts  of  practised  and  ingenious 
men  presenting  to  the  selection  of  an  impartial  judge  the  best 
arguments  for  the  establishment  and  explanation  of  truth. 
It  becomes,  then,  under  such  an  arrangement,  the  decided 
duty  of  an  advocate  to  use  all  the  arguments  in  his  power  to 
defend  the  cause  he  has  adopted,  and  to  leave  the  effects  of 
those  arguments  to  the  judgment  of  others.  However  useful 
this  practice  may  be  for  the  promotion  of  public  justice,  it  is 
not  without  danger  to  the  individual  whose  practice  it  be- 
comes. It  is  apt  to  produce  a  proiiigate  indifference  to  truth  in 
higher  occasions  of  life,  where  truth  cannot  for  a  moment  be 
trifled  with,  much  less  callously  trampled  on,  much  less  sud- 
denly and  totally  yielded  up  to  the  basest  of  human  motives. 
It  is  astonishing  what  unworthy  and  inadequate  notions  men 
are  apt  to  form  of  the  Christian  faith.  Christianity  does  not 
insist  upon  duties  to  an  individual,  and  forget  tlie  duties  which 
are  owing  to  the  great  mass  of  individuals,  which  we  call  our 
country ;  it  does  not  teach  you  how  to  benefit  your  neighbour, 
and  leave  you  to  inflict  the  most  serious  injuries  upon  all 


1 


IV.]  BENCH  AND   BAR  103 

whose  interest  is  bound  up  with  you  in  the  same  land.  I 
need  not  say  to  this  congregation  that  there  is  a  wrong  and  a 
right  in  public  affairs,  as  there  is  a  wrong  and  a  right  in 
private  affairs.  I  need  not  prove  tliat  in  any  vote,  in  any  line 
of  conduct  wliich  affects  the  public  interest,  every  Christian 
is  bound,  most  solemnly  and  most  religiously,  to  follow  the 
dictates  of  his  conscience.  Let  it  be  for,  let  it  be  against,  let 
it  please,  let  it  displease,  no  matter  with  whom  it  sides,  or 
what  it  thwarts,  it  is  a  solemn  duty,  on  such  occasions,  to  act 
from  the  pure  dictates  of  conscience,  and  to  be  as  faithful  to 
the  interests  of  the  great  mass  of  your  fellow-creatures,  as  you 
would  be  to  the  interests  of  any  individual  of  that  mass. 
Why,  then,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  these  obsei'vations,  can 
that  man  be  pure  and  innocent  before  God,  can  he  be  quite 
harmless  and  respectable  before  men,  who  in  mature  age,  at  a 
moment's  notice,  sacrifices  to  wealth  and  power  all  the  fixed 
and  firm  opinions  of  his  life ;  who  puts  his  moral  principles  to 
sale,  and  barters  his  dignity  and  his  soul  for  the  baubles  of  the 
world  ?  If  these  temptations  come  across  you,  then  remember 
the  memorable  words  of  the  text,  '  What  shall  I  do  to  inherit 
eternal  life?'" 

After  warning  the  younger  barristers  against  their 
characteristic  faults  of  self-sufficiency  and  affected 
pessimism,  the  preacher  turns  to  another  aspect  of 
the  advocate's  duty  towards  his  client.  — 

"  Upon  those  who  are  engaged  in  studying  the  laws  of  their 
country  devolves  the  honourable  and  Christian  task  of  defend- 
ing the  accused:  a  sacred  duty'never  to  be  yielded  up,  never 
to  be  influenced  by  any  vehemence,  nor  intensity  of  public 
opinion.  In  these  times  of  profound  peace  and  unexampled 
prosperity,  there  is  little  danger  in  executing  this  duty,  and 
little  temptation  to  violate  it :  but  human  affairs  change  like 
the  clouds  of  heaven  ;  another  year  may  find  us,  or  may  leave 
us,  in  all  the  perils  and  bitterness  of  internal  dissension ;  and 
upon  one  of  you  may  devolve  the  defence  of  some  accused 
person,  the  object  of  men's  hopes  and  fears,  the  single  point 
on  which  the  eyes  of  a  whole  people  are  bent.     These  are  the 


104  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

occasions  which  try  a  man's  inward  heart,  and  sej)arate  the 
dross  of  human  nature  from  the  gold  of  human  nature.  On 
these  occasions,  never  mind  being  mixed  up  for  a  moment  with 
the  criminal,  and  the  crime ;  fling  yourself  back  upon  great 
principles,  fling  yourself  back  upon  God;  yield  not  one  atom 
to  violence ;  suffer  not  the  slightest  encroachments  of  injustice ; 
retire  not  one  step  before  the  frowns  of  power ;  tremble  not, 
for  a  single  instant,  at  the  dread  of  misrepresentation.  The 
great  interests  of  mankind  are  placed  in  your  hands ;  it  is  not 
so  much  the  individual  you  are  defending ;  it  is  not  so  much 
a  matter  of  consequence  whether  this,  or  that,  is  proved  to  be 
a  crime ;  but  on  such  occasions,  you  are  often  called  upon  to 
defend  the  occupation  of  a  defender,  to  take  care  that  the 
sacred  rights  belonging  to  that  character  are  not  destroyed; 
that  that  best  privilege  of  your  profession,  which  so  much 
secures  our  regard,  and  so  much  redounds  to  your  credit,  is 
never  soothed  by  flattery,  never  corrupted  by  favour,  never 
chilled  by  fear.  You  may  practise  this  wickedness  secretly, 
as  you  may  any  other  wickedness ;  you  may  suppress  a  topic 
of  defence,  or  soften  an  attack  upon  opponents,  or  weaken 
your  own  argument  and  sacrifice  the  man  who  has  put  his 
trust  in  you,  rather  than  jorovoke  the  powerful  by  the 
triumphant  establishment  of  unwelcome  innocence :  but  if 
you  do  this,  you  are  a  guilty  man  before  God.  It  is  better 
to  keep  within  the  pale  of  honour,  it  is  better  to  be  pure  in 
Christ,  and  to  feel  that  you  are  pure  in  Christ :  and  if  ever 
the  praises  of  mankind  are  sweet,  if  it  be  ever  allowable  to  a 
Christian  to  breathe  the  incense  of  pojiular  favour,  and  to  say 
it  is  grateful  and  good,  it  is  when  the  honest,  temperate, 
unyielding  advocate,  who  has  protected  innocence  from  the 
grasp  of  power,  is  followed  from  the  hall  of  judgment  by  the 
prayers  and  blessings  of  a  grateful  people." 

And  then  comes  an  admonition  about  private  duty.  — 

"  Do  not  lose  God  in  the  fervour  and  business  of  the  world ; 
remember  that  the  churches  of  Christ  are  more  solemn,  and 
more  sacred,  than  your  tribunals  :  bend  not  before  the  judges 
of  the  king,  and  forget  the  Judge  of  Judges ;  search  not  other 


IV.]  BENCH  AND   BAR  105 

men's  hearts  without  heeding  that  yonr  own  hearts  will  be 
searched ;  be  innocent  in  the  midst  of  subtility ;  do  not  carry 
the  lawful  arts  of  your  profession  beyond  your  profession  ;  but 
when  the  robe  of  the  advocate  is  laid  aside,  so  live  that  no 
man  shall  dare  to  suppose  your  opinions  venal,  or  that  your 
talents  and  energy  may  be  bought  for  a  price :  do  not  heap 
scorn  and  contempt  upon  your  declining  years  by  precipitate 
ardour  for  success  in  your  profession ;  but  set  out  with  a  firm 
determination  to  be  unknown,  rather  than  ill-known ;  and  to 
rise  honestly,  if  you  rise  at  all.  Let  the  world  see  that  you 
have  risen,  because  the  natural  probity  of  your  heart  leads  you 
to  truth  ;  because  the  precision  and  extent  of  your  legal  know- 
ledge enables  you  to  find  the  right  way  of  doing  the  right 
thing ;  because  a  thorough  knowledge  of  legal  art  and  legal 
form  is,  in  your  hands,  not  an  instrument  of  chicanery,  but 
the  plainest,  easiest  and  shortest  way  to  the  end  of  strife.  .  .  . 
I  hope  you  will  weigh  these  observations,  and  apply  them  to 
the  business  of  the  ensuing  week,  and  beyond  that,  in  the 
common  occupations  of  your  profession :  always  bearing  in 
your  minds  the  emphatic  words  of  the  text,  and  often  in  the 
hurry  of  your  busy,  active  lives,  honestly,  humbly,  heartily 
exclaiming  to  the  Sou  of  God,  '  Master,  what  shall  I  do  to 
inherit  eternal  life  ?  '  " 


CHAPTER  V 

"  CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION  " BRISTOL  —  COMBE 

FLOREY  —  REFORM PROMOTION 

The  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  now 
nearing  its  close,  and  the  most  exciting  topic  in 
domestic  politics  was  the  emancipation  of  the  Roman 
Catholics.  The  movement  in  favour  of  emancipation, 
though  checked  by  the  death  of  Pitt,  had  never  com- 
pletely collapsed,  and  now  it  was  quickened  by  the 
exertions  of  the  "  Catholic  Association  "  in  Ireland,  and 
stimulated  by  the  eloquence  of  O'Connell  and  Shell. 
Session  after  Session,  emancipating  Bills  were  brought 
into  Parliament,  and  were  supported  by  Castlereagh 
and  Canning  in  opposition  to  their  colleagues.  The 
clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  —  fashioned,  almost 
to.  a  man,  on  the  model  of  Abraham  Plymley  —  were 
dreadfully  alarmed.  Bishops  charged  against  the  pro- 
posed concession.  Clerical  meetings  all  over  the 
country  petitioned  Parliament  to  defend  them  against 
insidious  attacks  on  our  national  Protestantism.  Before 
long,  the  storm  rolled  up  to  Yorkshire,  and  a  meet- 
ing of  the  Clergy  of  the  Archdeaconry  of  Cleveland 
was  assembled  at  Thirsk  on  the  24th  of  March  1823. 
To  this  meeting  a  Resolution  was  submitted,  protest- 
ing against  the  emancipation  of  the  Roman  Catholics. 
A  counter-petition  was  submitted  by  Sydney  Smith, 

106 


CHAP,  v.]         "CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION"  107 

begging  for  an  inquiry  into  all  laws  affecting  the 
Roman  Catholics  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and 
"  expressing  a  hope "  that  only  those  which  were  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  the  safety  of  Church  and  State 
might  be  suffered  to  remain.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive 
a  milder  proposition,  but  it  was  defeated  by  twenty- 
two  votes  to  ten  —  Archdeacon  Wrangham^  and  the 
Eev.  William  Vernon,^  son  of  the  Archbishop  of  York, 
voting  in  the  minority.  Sydney  Smith's  speech  in 
support  of  his  motion  recapitulated  the  main  argu- 
ments which,  as  Peter  Plymley,  he  had  adduced  at  an 
earlier  stage  of  the  same  controversy.  He  urged  that 
a  Eoman  Catholic's  oath  was  as  sacred  and  as  binding 
as  a  Protestant's ;  that  the  English  Constitution,  with 
great  advantage  to  its  subjects,  tolerated,  and  behaved 
generously  to,  all  forms  of  religion  (except  Romanism) ; 
and  that  all  possible  danger  to  civil  order  in  Ireland 
was  averted  by  the  stringency  of  the  restrictions 
with  which  it  was  proposed  to  safeguard  the  gift  of 
Emancipation.  — 

"  I  defy  Dr.  Duigenan,^  in  the  full  vigour  of  his  incapacity, 
in  the  strongest  access  of  that  Protestant  epilepsy  with  which 
he  was  so  often  convulsed,  to  have  added  a  single  security 
to  the  security  of  that  oath.  If  Catholics  are  formidable, 
are  not  Protestant  members  elected  by  Catholics  formidable  ? 
But  what  will  the  numbers  of  the  Catholics  be  ?  Five  or  six 
in  one  house,  and  ten  or  twelve  in  the  other ;  and  this  I  state 
upon  the  printed  authority  of  Lord  Harrowby,  the  tried  and 
acknowledged  friend  of  our  Church,  the  amiable  and  revered 

1  Francis  Wrangham  (1769-1842),  Archdeacon  of  Cleveland. 

2  William  Vernon-Harcourt  (1789-1871),  father  of  Sir  William 
Vernon-Harcourt,  M.P. 

3  Patrick  Duigenan  (1735-1816),  LL.D.,  M.P.  for  the  City  of 
Armagh,  and  Protestant  agitator. 


108  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

patron  of  its  poorest  members.  The  Catholics  did  not  rebel 
during  the  war  carried  on  for  a  Catholic  king,  in  the  year 
1715,  nor  in  1745.  The  government  armed  the  Catholics  in 
the  American  war.  The  last  rebellion  no  one  pretends  to 
have  been  a  Catholic  rebellion ;  the  leaders  were,  with  one 
exception,  all  Protestants.  The  king  of  Prussia,  the  emperor 
of  Russia,  do  not  complain  of  their  Catholic  subjects.  The 
Swiss  cantons,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  live  together  in 
harmony  and  peace.  Childish  prophecies  of  danger  are  al- 
ways made,  and  always  falsified.  The  Church  of  England 
(if  you  will  believe  some  of  its  members)  is  the  most  fainting, 
sickly,  hysterical  institution  that  ever  existed  in  the  world. 
Every  thing  is  to  destroy  it,  every  thing  to  work  its  dissolu- 
tion and  decay.  If  money  is  taken  for  tithes,  the  Church  of 
England  is  to  perish.  If  six  old  Catholic  peers,  and  twelve 
commoners,  come  into  Parliament,  these  holy  hypochondriacs 
tear  their  hair,  and  beat  their  breast,  and  mourn  over  the 
ruin  of  their  I^stablished  Church !  The  ilanter  is  cheerful  and 
confident.  The  Presbyterian  stands  uponhis  principles.  The 
Quaker  is  calm  and  contented.  The  strongest,  and  wisest,  and 
best  establishment  in  the  world,  suffers  in  the  full  vigour  of 
manhood,  all  the  fears  and  the  tremblings  of  extreme  old  age. 

•  •••■•  • 

"  I  conclude,  Sir,  remarks  which,  iipon  such  a  subject,  might 
be  carried  to  almost  any  extent,  with  presenting  to  you  a 
petition  to  Parliament,  and  recommending  it  for  the  adoption 
of  this  meeting.  And  upon  this  petition,  I  beg  leave  to  say 
a  few  words :  —  I  am  the  writer  of  the  petition  I  lay  before 
you;  and  I  have  endeavoured  to  make  it  as  mild  and 
moderate  as  I  possibly  could.  If  I  had  consulted  my  own 
opinions  alone,  I  should  have  said,  that  the  disabling  laws 
against  the  Catholics  were  a  disgrace  to  the  statute-book, 
and  that  every  principle  of  justice,  prudence,  and  humanity, 
called  for  their  immediate  repeal ;  but  he  who  wishes  to  do 
any  thing  useful  in  this  world,  must  consult  the  opinions  of 
others  as  well  as  his  own.  I  knew  very  well  if  I  had 
proposed  such  a  petition  to  my  excellent  friends,  the  Arch- 
deacon and  Mr.  William  Vernon,  it  would  not  have  suited 
the  mildness  and  moderation  of  their  character,  that  they 


v.]  "CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION"  109 

should  accede  to  it ;  and  I  knew  vei-y  well,  that  without  the 
authority  of  their  names,  I  could  have  done  nothing.  The 
present  petition,  when  proposed  to  them  by  me,  met,  as  I 
expected,  with  their  ready  and  cheerful  compliance.  But 
though  I  propose  this  petition  as  preferable  to  the  other,  I 
should  infinitely  prefer  that  we  do  nothing,  and  disj^erse 
without  coming  to  any  resolution. 

"  I  am  sick  of  these  little  clei-ico-political  meetings.  They 
bring  a  disgrace  upon  us  and  upon  our  jwofession,  and  make 
us  hateful  in  the  eyes  of  the  laity.  The  best  thing  we  could 
have  done,  would  have  been  never  to  have  met  at  all.  The 
next  best  thing  we  can  do  (now  we  are  met),  is  to  do  nothing. 
The  third  choice  is  to  take  my  petition.  The  fourth,  last, 
and  worst,  to  adopt  your  own.  The  wisest  thing  I  have 
heard  here  to-day,  is  the  proposition  of  Mr.  Chaloner,  that 
we  should  burn  both  petitions,  and  ride  home.  Here  we  are, 
a  set  of  obscure  country  clergymen,  at  the  '  Three  Tuns,' 
at  Thirsk,  like  flies  on  the  chariot-wheel;  perched  upon  a 
question  of  which  we  can  neither  see  the  diameter,  nor  control 
the  motion,  nor  influence  the  moving  force.  What  good  can 
such  meetings  do?  They  emanate  from  local  conceit,  adver- 
tize local  ignorance ;  make  men,  who  are  venerable  by  their 
profession,  ridiculous  by  their  pretensions,  and  swell  that 
mass  of  paper-lumber,  which,  got  up  with  infinite  rural 
bustle,  and  read  without  being  heard  in  Parliament,  is 
speedily  consigned  to  merited  contempt."  ^ 

1  The  Yorkshire  Gazette  for  April  12,  1823,  contaias  a  long 
letter  from  "A  North  Riding  Clergyman,"  protesting  against 
the  language  used  by  Sydney  Smith.  This  clergyman  states 
that  the  report  of  the  meeting  at  Thirsk,  given  by  the  York 
Herald  of  March  29,  was  "unquestionably  by  the  Minority 
themselves."  It  "  professes  to  be  a  sketch  of  what  was  said  and 
done  at  the  meeting  of  the  North  Riding  Clergy.  Then  the  public 
is  favoured  with  three  considerable  speeches,  filling  three  close 
columns  of  a  newspaper,  on  the  one  side  ;  and  not  with  three 
lines,  nay,  not  with  one,  of  auythiug  said  on  the  other  side. 
.  .  .  Surely  the  whole  of  the  twenty-two  clergymen  who  dif- 
fered from  the  ten  were  not  so  astounded  by  the  eloquence  and 
display  of  their  opponents  as  to  remain  absolutely  speechless."    It 


no  SYDNEY  SxMITH  [chap. 

So  ended  Sydney  Smith's  first  political  speech ;  and 
he  took  two  years'  holiday  from  the  labours  of  the 
platform.  On  the  11th  of  April  1825,  he  returned 
to  the  charge.  He  had  now  acquired,  in  addition  to 
Foston,  the  Rectory  of  Londesborough,  which  he  held 
from  1823  to  1829,  as  "  warming-pan  "  for  his  young 
friend  and  neighbour,  William  Howard.^  As  Rector  of 
Londesborough,  he  attended  a  meeting  of  the  Clergy 
of  the  Archdeaconry  of  the  East  Riding,  held  at 
Beverley  to  protest  against  the  Roman  Catholic  claims. 

The  TorTishire  Gazette  reported  the  proceedings,  and 
commented  as  follows :  — 


is  further  said  that  "  on  the  present  occasion,  and  after  assuring 
his  learned  brethren  that  he  was  not  going  to  inflict  upon  them 
a  speech,  and  some  other  remarlis  of  similar  accuracy,  Mr. 
Smith  immediately  harangues  them  in  a  vehement  and  long 
speech  ;  during  which,  with  firm  resolve,  it  may  seem,  not  to 
possess  either  '  overheated  mind '  or  body,  he  nearly  exhausted 
the  '  Three  Tuns  '  of  water."  For  this  quotation,  and  for  the  date 
of  the  meeting,  which  had  been  erroneously  stated  by  previous 
writers,  I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  J.  S.  R.  Phillips, 
editor  of  the  Yorkshire  Post. 

1  (1808-1889) :  became  8th  Earl  of  Carlisle  in  1864.  The  Rev. 
Richard  Wilton,  Canon  of  York  and  Rector  of  Londesborough, 
wrote  in  1895:  —  "My  former  venerable  friend,  the  oldest 
inhabitant,  gave  me  some  graphic  descriptions  of  Sydney  Smith's 
visit  to  the  parish  once  or  twice  a  year,  and  the  interest  which 
was  felt  in  the  village  when  he  drove  over  from  Foston,  his  other 
living,  to  preach  an  occasional  sermon  at  Londesborough.  His 
reading,  and  manner  in  the  pulpit,  were  described  to  me  as 
having  been  'bold  and  impressive.'  As  soon  as  the  sermon  was 
over,  he  would  hasten  out  of  the  church  along  with  his 
hearers,  and  chat  with  the  farmers  about  their  turnips,  or  cattle, 
or  corn-crops,  being  anxious  to  utilize  his  scant  opportunities  of 
conversing  with  his  parishioners.  .  .  .  There  was  until  lately 
living  in  this  parish  an  old  man  aged  eighty,  who  was  proud  of 
telling  how  he  was  invited  over  to  Foston  to  '  brew  for  Sydney,'  as 
he  affectionately  called  him." 


v.]  "CATHOLIC  EMANCIPATION"  111 

"  The  meeting  was  unanimous  in  its  determination  to  pe- 
tition Parliament  against  tiie  claims  of  the  Roman  Catholics 

—  one  individual  only  excepted,  the  Rector  of  Londesborough. 
This  gentleman  made  his  speech  on  the  occasion,  enlarging 
on  the  inexpediency  of  refusing  the  Roman  Catholics  their 
claims.  .  .  .  The  meeting,  though  by  no  means  unprepared  to 
hear  extraordinary  things  from  the  Rector  of  Londesborough, 
as  they  had  reason  to  anticipate  from  the  proceedings  of  a 
meeting  in  another  Archdeaconry  about  two  years  ago,  were 
yet  perfectly  astonished  to  hear  him  assert  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion  is  now  changed  from  what  it  was  formerly, 
and  that  the  oath  of  a  Papist  may,  in  all  cases,  be  relied 
upon  with  the  same  confidence  as  that  of  a  Protestant.  .  .  . 
It  is  certainly  due  to  the  Rector  of  Londesborough  to  state 
in  conclusion  that  he  bore  his  defeat  with  his  usual  good 
humour,  and  further  that,  having  learned  previous  to  the 
meeting  the  intention  of  his  curate  to  attend,  but  that  he 
was  hesitating  out  of  delicacy  to  the  declared  opinions  of  his 
rector,  the  latter  gentleman  made  it  a  particular  request  to 
his  curate  that  he  would  persevere  in  his  original  intention." 

Sydney  Smith's  peroration,  though  it  failed  to  per- 
suade his  brother-clergy,  is  so  good  that  it  deserves  to 
be  reproduced.  — 

"When  this  bill  passes,  it  will  be  a  signal  to  all  the 
religious  sects  of  that  unhappy  country  to  lay  aside  their 
mutual  hatred,  and  to  live  in  peace,  as  equal  men  should  live 
under  equal  law  —  when  this  bill  passes,  the  Orange  flag 
will  fall  —  when  this  bill  passes,  the  Green  flag  of  the  rebel 
will  fall  —  when  this  bill  passes,  no  other  flag  will  fly  in  the 
land  of  Erin  than  that  which  blends  the  Lion  with  the  Harp 

—  that  flag  which,  wherever  it  does  fly,  is  the  sign  of  freedom 
and  of  joy  —  the  only  banner  in  Europe  which  floats  over  a 
limited  King  and  a  free  people." 

On  this  occasion  the  orator  fared  even  less  well  than 

before  in  the   matter  of  voles.      His  *' excellent  and 

respectable    curate,   Mr.   Milestone,"  ^   voted    against 

1  Mr.  Stuart  Reid  gives  to  this  curious  name  the  more  impressive 
form  of  Mayelstone. 


112  SYDNEY  SMITH  [ch4P. 

him  ;  and  he  was  left  in  a  minority  of  one.  But  he 
had  the  satisfaction  of  being  able  to  write  to  a  friend 
—  "A  poor  clergyman  whispered  to  me  that  he  was 
quite  of  my  way  of  thinking,  but  had  nine  children. 
/  begged  he  would  remain  a  Protestant^ 

By  this  time  the  life  of  the  Parliament,  which  had 
been  elected  on  the  demise  of  the  Crown  in  1820,  was 
running  out,  and  both  parties  were  making  vigorous 
preparations  for  the  General  Election.  On  the  29tli 
January  1826,  Sydney  Smith  wrote  to  Lady  Grey :  — 

"  Terrible  work  in  Yorkshire  with  the  Pope  !  I  fight  witli 
the  beasts  at  Ephesus  every  day.  .  .  .  This  week  I  publish 
a  pamphlet  on  the  Catholic  question,  with  my  name  to  it. 
There  is  such  an  uproar  here  that  I  think  it  is  gallant,  and 
becoming  a  friend  of  Lord  Grey's,  to  turn  out  and  take  a 
part  in  the  affray.  .  .  .  What  a  detestable  subject !  —  stale, 
threadbare,  and  exhausted;  hut  ancient  errors  cannot  be 
met  with  fresh  refutations." 

Not  with  fresh  refutations,  perhaps,  but  with  a 
■wonderful  prodigality  of  fresh  illustrations  and  con- 
ceits. A  Letter  to  the  Electors  upon  the  Catholic  Ques- 
tion begins  with  the  thrice-repeated  question,  "  Why  is 
not  a  Catholic  to  be  believed  on  his  oath  ?  " 

"  What  says  the  law  of  the  land  to  this  extravagant  piece 
of  injustice  ?  It  is  no  challenge  against  a  juryman  to  say 
he  is  a  Catholic;  he  sits  in  judgment  upon  your  life  and 
your  property.  Did  any  man  ever  hear  it  said  that  such  or 
such  a  person  was  put  to  death,  or  that  he  dost  his  property, 
because  a  Catholic  was  among  the  jurymen  ?  Is  the  ques- 
tion ever  put?  Does  it  ever  enter  into  the  mind  of  the 
attorney  or  the  counsellor  to  enquire  of  the  faith  of  the 
jury  ?  If  a  man  sell  a  horse,  or  a  house,  or  a  field,  does  he 
ask  if  the  purchaser  be  a  Catholic?  Appeal  to  your  own 
experience,  and  try,  by  that  fairest  of  all  tests,  the  justice  of 
this  enormous  charge. 


v.]  "CATHOLIC  EMANCIPATION"  113 

"  We  are  in  treaty  with  many  of  the  powers  of  Europe, 
because  we  believe  in  the  good  faith  of  Catholics.  Two-thirds 
of  Europe  are,  in  fact,  Catholics ;  ai'e  they  all  perjured  ?  For 
the  first  fourteen  centuries  all  the  Christian  world  were 
Catholics ;  did  they  live  in  a  constant  state  of  perjury  ?  I  am 
sure  these  objections  against  the  Catholics  are  often  made  by 
very  serious  and  honest  men,  but  I  much  doubt  if  Voltaire 
has  advanced  any  thing  against  the  Christian  religion  so 
horrible  as  to  say  that  two-thirds  of  those  who  profess  it  are 
unfit  for  all  the  purposes  of  civil  life  ;  for  who  is  fit  to  live  in 
society  who  does  not  respect  oaths  ? 

"  I  have  lived  a  little  in  the  world,  but  I  never  happened 
to  hear  a  single  Catholic  even  suspected  of  getting  into  office 
by  violating  his  oath;  the  oath  which  they  ai'e  accused  of 
violating  is  an  insuperable  barrier  to  them  all.  Is  there  a 
more  disgraceful  spectacle  in  the  world  than  that  of  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk  hoveringround  the  House  of  Lords  in  the  execution 
of  his  office,^  which  he  cannot  enter  as  a  peer  of  the  realm? 
disgraceful  to  the  bigotry  and  injustice  of  his  country  — to  his 
own  sense  of  duty,  honourable  in  the  extreme :  he  is  the 
leader  of  a  band  of  ancient  and  high-principled  gentlemen, 
who  submit  patiently  to  obscurity  and  privation  rather  than 
do  violence  to  their  conscience.  In  all  the  fury  of  party,  I 
never  heard  the  name  of  a  single  Catholic  mentioned,  who 
■was  suspected  of  having  gained,  or  aimed  at,  any  political 
advantage,  by  violating  his  oath.  I  have  never  heard  so 
bitter  a  slander  supported  by  the  slightest  proof.  Every  man 
in  the  circle  of  his  acquaintance  has  met  with  Catholics,  and 
lived  with  them  probably  as  companions.  If  this  immoral 
lubricity  were  their  characteristic,  it  would  surely  be  per- 
ceived in  common  life.  Every  man's  experience  would  cor- 
roborate the  imputation;  but  I  can  honestly  say  that  some 
of  the  best  and  most  excellent  men  I  have  ever  met  with  have 
been  Catholics;  perfectly  alive  to  the  evil  and  inconvenience 
of  their  situation,  but  thinking  themselves  bound  by  the  law 
of  God  and  the  law  of  honour,  not  to  avoid  persecution  by 

1  As  Earl  Marshal. 


Ill  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

falsehood  and  apostasy.  I  remember  hearing  the  Catholics 
accused  from  the  Hustings  of  disregarding  oaths,  and  within 
an  hour  of  that  time  I  saw  five  Catholic  voters  rejected, 
because  they  would  not  take  the  oath  of  Supremacy ;  and 
these  were  not  men  of  rank  who  tendered  themselves,  but 
ordinary  tradesmen.  The  accusation  was  received  with  loud 
huzzas,  the  poor  Catholics  retired  unobserved  and  in  silence. 
No  one  praised  the  conscientious  feeling  of  the  constituents; 
no  one  rebuked  the  calumny  of  the  candidate. 

"I  beg  to  remind  you,  that  in  talking  of  the  Catholic 
religion,  you  must  talk  of  the  Catholic  religion  as  it  is  carried 
on  in  Ireland ;  you  have  nothing  to  do  with  Spain,  or  France, 
or  Italy  :  the  religion  you  are  to  examine  is  the  Irish  Catholic 
religion.  You  are  not  to  consider  what  it  was,  but  what  it 
is ;  not  what  individuals  profess,  but  what  is  generally  pro- 
fessed; not  what  individuals  do,  but  what  is  generally 
practised.  I  constantly  see,  in  advertisements  from  county 
meetings,  all  these  species  of  monstrous  injustice  played  off 
against  the  Catholics.  The  Inquisition  exists  in  Spain  and 
Portugal,  therefore  I  confound  place,  and  vote  against  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  where  it  never  did  exist,  nor  was 
purposed  to  be  instituted.  There  have  been  many  cruel  perse- 
cutions of  Protestants  by  Catholic  governments ;  and,  there- 
fore, I  will  confound  time  and  place,  and  vote  against  the 
Irish,  who  live  centuries  after  these  persecutions,  and  in  a 
totally  different  country.  Doctor  this,  or  Doctor  that,  of  the 
Catholic  Church  has  written  a  very  violent  and  absurd 
pamphlet ;  therefore  I  will  confound  persons,  and  vote 
against  the  whole  Irish  Catholic  Church,  which  has  neither 
sanctioned  nor  expressed  any  such  opinions.  I  wiU  continue 
the  incapacities  of  men  of  this  age,  becausesome  men,  in  distant 
ages,  deserved  ill  of  other  men  in  distant  ages.  They  shall 
expiate  the  crimes  committed,  before  they  were  born,  in  a 
land  they  never  saw ;  by  individuals  they  never  heard  of.  I 
will  charge  them  with  every  act  of  folly  which  they  have 
never  sanctioned  and  cannot  control.  I  will  sacrifice  space, 
time,  and  identity,  to  my  zeal  for  the  Protestant  Church. 


v.]  "CATHOLIC  EMANCIPATION"  115 

Now,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  violence,  consider,  for  a  moment, 
how  you  are  imposed  on  by  words,  and  what  a  serious  viola- 
tion of  the  rights  of  your  fellow-creatures  you  are  committing. 
Mr.  Murphy  lives  in  Limericlc,  and  Mr.  Murphy  and  his  son 
are  subjected  to  a  thousand  inconveniences  and  disadvantages 
because  they  are  Catholics.  Murphy  is  a  wealthy,  honour- 
able, excellent  man ;  he  ought  to  be  in  the  corporation ;  he 
cannot  get  in  because  he  is  a  Catliolic.  His  son  ought  to  be 
King's  Counsel  for  his  talents,  and  his  standing  at  the  Bar; 
he  is  prevented  from  reaching  this  dignity,  because  he  is  a 
Catholic.  Why,  what  reasons  do  you  hear  for  all  this? 
Because  Queen  Mary,  three  hundred  years  before  the  natal 
day  of  Mr.  Murphy,  murdered  Protestants  in  Smithfield; 
because  Louis  xiv.  dragooned  his  Protestant  subjects,  when 
the  predecessor  of  Murphy's  predecessor  was  not  in  being ; 
because  men  are  confined  in  prison,  in  Madrid,  twelve 
degrees  more  south  than  INIurphy  has  ever  been  in  his  life ; 
all  ages,  all  climates,  are  ransacked  to  perpetuate  the  slavery 
of  Murphy,  the  ill-fated  victim  of  political  anachronisms. 

"  When  are  mercy  and  justice,  in  fact,  ever  to  return  upon 
the  earth,  if  the  sins  of  the  elders  are  to  be  for  ever  visited  on 
those  who  are  not  even  their  children  1  Should  the  first  act  of 
liberated  Greece  be  to  recommence  the  Trojan  war?  Are  the 
French  never  to  forget  the  Sicilian  Vespers  ;  or  the  Americans 
the  long  war  waged  against  their  liberties  ?  Is  any  rule  wise, 
which  may  set  the  Irish  to  recollect  what  they  have  suffered? 
....... 

"  It  is  no  part  of  my  province  to  defend  every  error  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  I  believe  it  has  many  errors,  though  I  am 
sure  these  errors  are  grievously  exaggerated  and  misrepre- 
sented. .  .  .  But,  if  you  will  take  a  long  view  instead  of  a 
confined  view,  and  look  generally  to  the  increase  of  human 
happiness,  the  best  check  upon  the  increase  of  Popery,  the  best 
security  for  the  establishment  of  the  Protestant  Church  is,  that 
the  British  empire  shall  be  preserved  in  a  state  of  the  greatest 
strength,  union,  and  opulence.  My  cry  then  is,  No  Popery ; 
therefore  emancipate  the  Catholics,  that  they  may  not  join 


116  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

with  foreign  Papists  in  time  of  war.  Church  for  ever ;  therefore 
emancipate  the  Catholics,  that  they  may  not  help  to  pull  it  down. 
King  for  ever;  therefore  emancipate  the  Catholics,  that  they 
may  become  his  loyal  subjects.  Great  Britain  for  ever ;  there- 
fore emancipate  the  Catholics,  that  they  may  not  put  an  end 
to  its  perpetuity.  Our  Government  is  essentially  Protestant ; 
therefore,  by  emancipating  the  Catholics,  give  up  a  few  cir- 
cumstances which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  essence.  The 
Catholics  are  disguised  enemies;  therefore,  by  emancipation, 
turn  them  into  open  friends.  They  have  a  douhle  allegiance ; 
therefore,  by  emancipation,  make  their  allegiance  to  their 
King  so  grateful,  that  they  will  never  confound  it  with  the 
spiritual  allegiance  to  their  Pope.  It  is  very  dilRcult  for 
electors,  who  are  much  occupied  by  other  matters,  to  choose  tlie 
right  path  amid  the  rage  and  fury  of  faction  :  but  I  give  you 
one  mark,  vote  for  a  free  altar ;  give  what  the  law  compels  you 
to  give  to  the  Establishment;  (thatdone,)  no  chains,  no  prisons, 
no  bonfires  for  a  man's  faith;  and,  above  all,  no  modern 
chains  and  prisons  under  the  names  of  disqualifications  and 
incapacities,  which  are  only  the  cruelty  and  tyranny  of  a  more 
civilized  age ;  civil  offices  open  to  all,  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant 
alderman,  a  Moravian  or  a  Church  of  England  or  a  '\Vesleyan 
justice,  no  oppression,  no  tyranny  in  belief:  a  free  altar,  an 
open  road  to  heaven;  no  human  insolence,  no  human  narrow- 
ness, hallowed  by  the  name  of  God. 

•  •  • 

"  Our  Government  is  called  essentially  Protestant ;  but,  if 
it  be  essentially  Protestant  in  the  distribution  of  office,  it 
should  be  essentially  Protestant  in  the  imposition  of  taxes. 
The  Treasury  is  open  to  all  religions.  Parliament  only  to  one. 
The  tax-gatherer  is  the  most  indulgent  and  liberal  of  human 
beings;  he  excludes  no  creed,  imposes  no  articles;  but  counts 
Catholic  cash,  pockets  Protestant  paper,  and  is  candidly  and 
impartially  oppressive  to  every  description  of  the  Christian 
world.  Can  anything  be  more  base  than  when  you  want  the 
blood  or  the  money  of  Catholics,  to  forget  that  they  are 
Catholics,  and  to  remember  only  that  they  are  British 
subjects ;  and,  when  they  ask  for  the  benefits  of  the  Bi-itish 


v.]  "CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION"  117 

Constitution,  to  remember  only  that  they  are  Catholics,  and 
to  forget  that  they  are  British  subjects? 

'■'■No  Popery  was  the  cry  of  the  great  English  Revolution, 
because  the  increase  and  prevalence  of  Popery  in  England 
would,  at  that  period,  have  rendered  this  island  tributary  to 
France.  The  Irish  Catholics  were,  at  that  period,  broken  to 
pieces  by  the  severity  and  military  execution  of  Cromwell, 
and  by  the  Penal  Laws.  They  are  since  become  a  great  and 
formidable  people.  The  same  dread  of  foreign  influence 
makes  it  now  necessary  that  they  should  be  restored  to 
political  rights.  Must  the  friends  of  rational  liberty  join  in  a 
clamour  against  the  Catholics  now,  because,  in  a  very  different 
state  of  the  world,  they  excited  that  clamour  a  hundred  years 
ago?  I  remember  a  house  near  Battersea  Bridge  which 
caught  fire,  and  there  was  a  great  cry  of  '  Water,  water  ! ' 
Ten  years  after,  the  Thames  rose,  and  the  people  of  the  house 
were  nearly  drowned.  Would  it  not  have  been  rather 
singular  to  have  said  to  the  inhabitants  — '  I  heard  you  calling 
for  water  ten  years  ago ;  why  don't  you  call  for  it  now  ? ' " 

"Mild  and  genteel  people  do  not  like  the  idea  of  persecu- 
tion, and  are  advocates  for  toleration  ;  but  then  they  think  it 
no  act  of  intolerance  to  deprive  Catholics  of  political  power. 
The  history  of  all  this  is,  that  all  men  scarcely  like  to  punish 
others  for  not  being  of  the  same  ophiion  with  themselves,  and 
that  this  sort  of  privation  is  the  only  species  of  persecution,  of 
which  the  improved  feeling  and  advanced  cultivation  of  the 
age  wUl  admit.  Fire  and  faggot,  chains  and  stone  walls,  have 
been  clamoured  away ;  nothing  remains  but  to  mortify  a  man's 
pride,  and  to  limit  his  resources,  and  to  set  a  mark  upon  him, 
by  cutting  him  off  from  his  fair  share  of  political  power.  By 
this  receipt  insolence  is  gratified,  and  humanity  is  not 
shocked.  The  gentlest  Protestant  can  see,  with  dry  eyes. 
Lord  Stourton  excluded  from  parliament,  though  he  would 
abominate  the  most  distant  idea  of  personal  cruelty  to  Mr. 
Petre.  This  is  only  to  say  that  he  lives  in  the  nineteenth, 
instead  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  that  he  is  as  intolerant 
in  religious  matters  as  the  state  of  manners  existing  in  his  age 


118  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

will  permit.  Is  it  not  the  same  spirit  which  wounds  the 
pride  of  a  fellow-creature  on  account  of  his  faith,  or  which 
casts  his  body  into  the  flames  ?  Are  they  any  thing  else  but 
degrees  and  modifications  of  the  same  principle  ?  The  minds 
of  these  two  men  no  more  differ  because  they  differ  in  their 
degrees  of  punishment,  than  their  bodies  differ  because  one 
wore  a  doublet  in  the  time  of  Mary,  and  the  other  wears  a 
coat  in  the  reign  of  George.  I  do  not  accuse  them  of  inten- 
tional cruelty  and  injustice :  I  am  sure  there  are  very  many 
excellent  men  who  would  be  shocked  if  they  could  conceive 
themselves  to  be  guilty  of  any  thing  like  cruelty ;  but  they 
innocently  give  a  wrong  name  to  the  bad  spirit  which  is 
within  them,  and  think  they  are  tolerant  because  they  are 
not  as  intolerant  as  they  could  have  been  in  other  times,  but 
cannot  be  now.  The  true  spirit  is  to  search  after  God  and  for 
another  life  tenth  lowliness  of  heart;  to  fling  down  no  man's 
altar,  to  punish  no  man's  prayer ;  to  heap  no  penalties  and  no 
pains  on  those  solemn  supplications  lohich,  in  divers  tongues,  and 
in  varied  forms,  and  in  temples  of  a  thousand  shapes,  but  with 
one  deep  sense  of  human  dependence,  men  pour  forth  to  God." 

At  this  point  of  his  Letter,  the  writer  turns  aside  to 
combat  the  contention  that,  because  Koman  Catholics 
have  in  times  past  persecuted  Protestants,  therefore 
they  must  now  be  deprived  of  their  civil  rights.  If 
this  contention  be  sound,  the  Protestant  must,  by 
parity  of  reasoning,  be  disfranchised. 

"  The  first  object  of  men  who  love  party  better  than  truth, 
is  to  have  it  believed  that  the  Catholics  alone  have  been  per- 
secutors. But  what  can  be  more  flagrantly  unjust  than  to 
take  over  notions  of  history  only  from  the  conquering  and 
triumphant  party?  If  you  think  the  Catholics  have  not 
their  Book  of  Martyrs  as  well  as  the  Protestants,  take  the 
following  enumeration  of  some  of  their  most  learned  and  care- 
ful writers.  The  whole  number  of  Catholics  who  suffered 
death  in  England  for  the  exercise  of  the  Catholic  religion  since 
the  Reformation  stands  thus :  — 


I 


v.]  "CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION"  119 


Henry  vrii.,     .... 

59 

Elizabeth,        .... 

204 

James  i.,          .... 

25 

Charles  i.,                       > 
and  Commonwealth, ) 

23 

Charles  ii.,      .... 

8 

Total,     . 

319 

"  Henry  viii.,  with  consummate  impartiality,  burnt  three 
Protestants  and  hanged  four  Catholics  for  different  errors  in 
religion  on  the  same  day,  and  at  the  same  place.  Elizabeth 
burnt  two  Dutch  Anabaptists  for  some  theological  tenets, 
July  22, 1575,  Fox  the  martyrologist  vainly  pleading  with  the 
queen  in  their  favour.  In  1579,  the  same  Protestant  queen 
cut  off  the  hand  of  Stubbs,  the  author  of  a  tract  against 
popish  connexion,  of  Singleton,  the  printer,  and  Page,  the 
disperser  of  the  book.  Camden  saw  it  done.  Warburton 
properly  says  it  exceeds  in  cruelty  any  thing  done  by 
Charles  i.  On  the  4th  of  June,  Mr.  Elias  Thacker  and  Mr. 
John  Capper,  two  ministers  of  the  Brownist  persuasion,  were 
hanged  at  St.  Edmund's-bury,  for  dispersing  books  against 
the  Common  Prayer.  With  respect  to  the  great  part  of 
the  Catholic  victims,  the  law  was  fully  and  literally  exe- 
cuted :  after  being  banged  up,  they  were  cut  down  alive, 
dismembered,  ripped  up,  and  their  bowels  burnt  before 
their  faces ;  after  which  they  were  beheaded  and  quartered. 
The  time  employed  in  this  butchery  was  very  consider- 
able, and,  in  one  instance,  lasted  more  than  half  an  hour. 

"  The  uncandid  excuse  for  all  this  is,  that  the  greater  part 
of  these  men  were  put  to  death  for  political,  not  for  religious, 
crimes.  That  is,  a  law  is  first  passed,  making  it  high  treason 
for  a  priest  to  exercise  his  function  in  England,  and  so,  when 
he  is  caught  and  burnt,  this  is  not  religious  persecution,  but 
an  offence  against  the  State.  We  are,  I  hope,  all  too  busy  to 
need  any  answer  to  such  childish,  uncandid  reasoning  as  this." 

And  then  the  Letter  goes  on  to  give,  with  the  fullest 
apparatus  of  details,  dates,  and  authorities,  the  miser- 
able tale  of  religious  persecution  practised,  during  three 


120  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

centuries,  at  liome  and  abroad,  by  Anglicans  on  Puri- 
tans, by  Protestants  on  Eomanists,  by  orthodox  Pro- 
testants on  heterodox  Protestants ;  and  then,  to  clinch 
his  argument  and  drive  it  home,  he  gives  the  substance 
of  the  Penal  Code  under  which  Irish  Catholics  suffered 
so  cruelly  and  so  long. 

"  AVith  such  facts  as  these,  the  cry  of  persecution  will  not 
do  ;  it  is  unwise  to  make  it,  because  it  can  be  so  very  easily, 
and  so  very  justly  retorted.  The  business  is  to  forget  and 
forgive,  to  kiss  and  be  friends,  and  to  say  nothing  of  what 
has  passed ;  which  is  to  the  credit  of  neither  party.  There 
have  been  atrocious  cruelties,  and  abominable  acts  of  injus- 
tice, on  both  sides.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  contend  who 
shed  the  most  blood,  or  whether  death  by  fire  is  worse  than 
hanging  or  starving  in  prison.  As  far  as  England  itself  is 
concerned,  the  balance  may  be  better  preserved.  Cruelties 
exercised  upon  the  Irish  go  for  nothing  in  English  reason- 
ing ;  but  if  it  were  not  uncandid  and  vexatious  to  consider 
Irish  persecutions  ^  as  part  of  the  case,  I  firmly  believe  there 
have  been  two  Catholics  put  to  death  for  religious  causes  in 
Great  Britain  for  one  Protestant  who  has  suffered:  not  that 
this  proves  much,  because  the  Catholics  have  enjoyed  the 
sovereign  power  for  so  few  years  between  this  period  and  the 
Reformation ;  and  certainly  it  must  be  allowed  that  they 
were  not  inactive,  during  that  period,  in  the  great  work  of 
pious  combustion. 

"  It  is  however  some  extenuation  of  the  Catholic  excesses, 
that  their  religion  was  the  religion  of  the  whole  of  Europe 
when  the  innovation  began.     They  were  the  ancient  lords 

1  "  Thurloe  writes  to  Henry  Cromwell  to  catch  up  some  thousand 
Irish  boys,  to  send  to  the  colonies.  Henry  writes  back  he  has 
done  so;  and  desires  to  know  whether  his  Highness  would 
choose  as  many  girls  to  be  caught  up:  and  he  adds,  'doubtless 
it  is  a  business  in  which  God  will  appear.'  Suppose  bloody 
Queen  Mary  had  caught  up  and  transported  three  or  four 
thousand  Protestant  boys  and  girls  from  the  three  Ridings  of 
Yorkshire!  !  !  !  !  !  S.  S." 


4 


v.]  "CATHOLIC  EI^IANCIPATION "  121 

and  masters  of  faith,  before  men  introduced  the  practice  of 
thinking  for  themselves  in  these  matters.  The  Protestants 
have  less  excuse,  who  claimed  the  right  of  innovation,  and 
then  turned  round  upon  other  Protestants  who  acted  upon 
the  same  principle,  or  upon  Catholics  who  remained  as  they 
were,  and  visited  them  with  all  the  cruelties  from  which  they 
had  themselves  so  recently  escaped. 

"  Both  sides,  as  they  acquired  power,  abused  it ;  and  both 
learnt,  from  their  sufferings,  the  great  secret  of  toleration  and 
forbearance.  If  you  wish  to  do  good  in  the  times  in  which 
you  live,  contribute  your  efforts  to  perfect  this  grand  work. 
I  have  not  the  most  distant  intention  to  interfere  in  local 
politics ;  but  I  advise  you  never  to  give  a  vote  to  any  man 
whose  only  title  for  asking  it  is  that  he  means  to  continue 
the  punishments,  privations,  and  incapacities  of  any  human 
beings,  merely  because  they  worship  God  in  the  way  they 
think  best :  the  man  who  asks  for  your  vote  ujjon  such  a  plea, 
is,  probably,  a  very  weak  man,  who  believes  in  his  own  bad 
reasoning,  or  a  very  artful  man,  who  is  laughing  at  you  for 
your  credulity :  at  all  events,  he  is  a  man  who  knowingly  or 
unknowingly  exposes  his  country  to  the  greatest  dangers,  and 
hands  down  to  posterity  all  the  foolish  opinions  and  all  the 
bad  passions  which  prevail  in  those  times  in  which  he  happens 
to  live.  Such  a  man  is  so  far  from  being  that  friend  to  the 
Church,  which  he  pretends  to  be,  that  he  declares  its  safety 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  franchises  of  the  people ;  for 
what  worse  can  be  said  of  the  Church  of  England  than  this, 
that  wherever  it  is  judged  necessary  to  give  it  a  legal  estab- 
lishment, it  becomes  necessary  to  deprive  the  body  of  the 
people,  if  they  adhere  to  their  old  opinions,  of  their  liberties, 
and  of  all  their  free  customs,  and  to  reduce  them  to  a  state  of 
civil  servitude  ?  Sydney  Smith." 

After  tlie  discharge  of  this  tremendous  missile 
against  the  tottering  fortress  of  bigotry,  the  energetic 
engineer  sought  a  brief  interlude  of  rest  and  recrea- 
tion. His  money-matters  had  of  late  years  improved. 
An  aunt   had   died   and   left  him  a   legacy,  and  the 


122  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

Kectory  of  Londesborough  was  a  profitable  prefer- 
ment. The  income  thns  augmented  enabled  him  to 
realize  a  long-cherished  dream  and  pay  his  first  visit 
to  Paris,  in  the  spring  of  1826.  There  he  met 
some  old  friends,  made  several  new  acquaintances, 
ate  some  excellent  but  expensive  dinners,  mastered 
the  Louvre  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  saw  Talma 
in  tragedy  and  Mademoiselle  Mars  in  "  genteel 
comedy."  At  the  Opera  he  noticed  that  "the  house 
was  full  of  English,  who  talk  loud,  and  seem  to  care 
little  for  other  people.  This  is  their  characteristic, 
and  a  very  brutal  and  barbarous  distinction  it  is."  He 
keenly  admired  the  luxury  and  beauty  and  prettiness 
of  Paris,  and  especially  the  profusion  of  glass  in  French 
drawing-rooms.  "I  remember  entering  a  room  with 
glass  all  round  it,  and  saw  myself  reflected  on  every 
side.  I  took  it  for  a  meeting  of  the  clergy,  and  was 
delighted  of  course."  He  returned  to  England  in 
May ;  on  the  2nd  of  June  Parliament  was  dissolved. 
"  We  have  been,"  he  wrote,  "  in  the  horror  of  Elections 
—  each  party  acting  and  thinking  as  if  the  salvation 
of  several  planets  depended  upon  the  adoption  of  Mr. 
Johnson  and  the  rejection  of  Mr.  Jackson."  In  July, 
Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  a  young  and  unsuccess- 
ful barrister,  found  himself  on  circuit  at  York.  He 
was  told  that  Mr.  Smith  had  come  to  see  him,  and, 
when  the  visitor  was  admitted,  he  recognized  — 

"the  Smith  of  Smiths,  Sydney  Smith,  alias  Peter  Plymley. 
I  had  forgotten  his  very  existence  till  I  discerned  the  queer 
contrast  between  his  black  coat  and  his  snow-white  head,  and 
the  equally  curious  contrast  between  the  clerical  amplitude  of 
his  person,  and  the  most  unclerical  wit,  whim,  and  petulance 
of  his  eye." 


v.]  "CATHOLIC  EMANCIPATION"  123 

Macaulay  spent  the  following  Sunday  at  Foston 
Kectory,  and  thus  records  his  impressions :  — 

"  I  understand  that  S.  S.  is  a  very  respectable  apothecary, 
and  most  liberal  of  his  skill,  his  medicine,  his  soup,  and  his 
wine,  among  the  sick.  He  preached  a  very  queer  sermon  — 
tlie  former  lialf  too  familiar,  and  the  latter  half  too  florid,  but 
not  without  some  ingenuity  of  thought  and  expression.  .  .  . 

"  His  misfortune  is  to  have  chosen  a  profession  at  once 
above  him  and  below  him.  Zeal  would  have  made  him  a 
prodigy ;  formality  and  bigotry  would  have  made  him  a 
bishop ;  but  he  could  neither  rise  to  the  duties  of  his  order, 
nor  stoop  to  its  degradation." 

In  December  Sydney  wrote  to  a  newly-elected 
Member  of  Parliament  :  — 

"  I  see  you  have  broken  ice  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
I  shall  be  curious  to  hear  your  account  of  your  feelings,  of 
what  colour  the  human  creatures  looked  who  surrounded  you, 
and  how  the  candles  and  Speaker  appeared.  .  .  .  For  God's 
sake,  open  upon  the  Chancery.  On  this  subject  there  can  be 
no  excess  of  vituperation  and  severity.  Advocate  also  free 
trade  in  ale  and  ale-houses.  Respect  the  Church,  and  believe 
that  the  insignificant  member  of  it  who  now  addresses  you  is 
most  truly  yours,  Sydney  Smith." 

At  the  same  time  he  wrote  as  follows  to  a  young 
friend  —  Lord  John  Kussell  —  who  had  lost  his  seat 
and  published  a  book :  — 

"  Dear  John,  —  I  have  read  your  book  on  the  State  of 
Europe  since  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  with  much  pleasure  — 
sensible,  liberal,  spirited,  philosophical,  well-written.  Go 
on  writing  History.  Write  a  History  of  Louis  xiv.,  and  put 
the  world  right  about  that  old  Beast. 

"  I  am  sorry  you  are  not  in  parliament.  You  ought  to  be 
everywhere  where  honest  and  bold  men  can  do  good.  Health 
and  respect.     Ever  yours,  Sydney  Smith." 


124  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

The  year  1827  opened  dramatically.  On  tlie  18th 
February  Lord  Liverpool,  who  had  been  Prime  Minister 
since  the  assassination  of  Spencer  Perceval  in  1812, 
was  suddenly  stricken  by  fatal  illness.  On  the  10th 
of  April  King  George  iv.  found  himself,  much  against 
his  will,  constrained  to  entrust  the  formation  of  a  Gov- 
ernment to  George  Canning.  Canning  was  avow- 
edly favourable  to  the  Roman  Catholic  claims,  and 
on  that  account  some  of  the  most  important  of  his 
former  colleagues  declined  to  serve  under  him.  The 
Ministry  was  reconstructed  with  an  infusion  of  Whigs ; 
and  the  brilliant  but  unscrupulous  Copley  became 
Chancellor  with  the  title  of  Lord  Lyndhurst.^ 

A  Ministry,  containing  Whigs  as  well  as  Tories  and 
committed  to  the  cause  of  Roman  Catholic  emancipa- 
tion, seemed  likely  to  open  the  way  of  preferment  to 
Sydney  Smith.  Knowing  that  his  income  would  soon 
be  materially  reduced  by  the  cessation  of  his  tenure 
of  Londesborough,  he  wrote  to  some  of  his  friends 
among  the  new  Ministers  and  boldly  stated  his  claims. 
One  of  these  Ministers  seems  to  have  made  a  rather 
chilly  response ;  and  the  applicant  did  not  spare  him.  — 

"  I  am  much  obliged  by  your  polite  letter.  You  appeal  to 
my  good-nature  to  prevent  me  from  considering  your  letter 
as  a  decent  method  of  putting  me  oE.  Your  appeal,  I  assure 
you,  is  not  made  in  vain.  I  do  not  think  you  mean  to  put  me 
off  ;  because  I  am  the  most  prominent,  and  was  for  a  long 
time  the  only,  clerical  advocate  of  that  question,  by  the  proper 
arrangement  of  which  you  believe  the  happiness  and  safety  of 
the  country  would  be  materially  improved.  I  do  not  believe 
you  mean  to  put  me  off ;  because,  in  giving  me  some  pro- 
motion, you  will  teach  the  clergy,  from  whose  timidity  you 
have  everything  to  apprehend,  and  whose  influence  iipon  the 

1  Johu  Siugleton  Copley  (177^1863). 


v.]  BRISTOL  125 

people  you  cannot  doubt,  that  they  may,  under  your  Govern- 
ment, obey  the  dictates  of  their  consciences  without  sacrific- 
ing the  emoluments  of  their  profession.  I  do  not  think  you 
mean  to  put  me  off ;  because,  in  the  conscientious  adminis- 
tration of  that  patronage  with  which  you  are  entrusted,  I 
think  it  will  occur  to  you  that  something  is  due  to  a  person 
who,  instead  of  basely  chiming  in  with  the  bad  passions  of 
the  multitude,  has  dedicated  some  talent  and  some  activity 
to  soften  religious  hatreds,  and  to  make  men  less  violent  and 
less  foolish  tlian  he  found  them." 

In  July  he  wrote  to  a  friend :  — 

"  The  worst  political  news  is  that  Canning  is  not  well, 
and  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  has  dined  with  the  King. 
Canning  dead.  Peel  is  the  only  man  remaining  alive  in  the 
House  of  Commons.     I  mean,  the  only  man  in  his  senses." 

On  the  8tli  of  August  Canning  died,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Lord  Goderich,  who  in  turn  made  way  for 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  January  1828,  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst  again  becoming  Chancellor. 

On  the  1st  of  January  1828,  Sydney  Smith's  second 
da.nghter,  Emily,  was  married  to  Nathaniel  Hibbert, 
afterwards  of  Munden  House,  near  Watford.  Her 
father  wrote :  — 

"  We  were  married  on  New  Year's  Day,  and  are  gone !  I 
feel  as  if  I  had  lost  a  limb,  and  were  walking  about  with  one 
leg  —  and  nobody  pities  this  description  of  invalids." 

Three  weeks  later.  Lord  Chancellor  Lyndhurst,  yield- 
ing to  private  friendship  what  the  Whigs  had  refused 
to  political  loyalty,  appointed  the  Kector  of  Foston  to 
a  Prebendal  Stall  in  Bristol  Cathedral.  This  brought 
him  at  length  official  station  in  the  Church,  and  a 
permanent  instead  of  a  terminable  income.  He  wrote 
from  Bristol  on  the  17th  of  February  :  — 

"  An  extremely  comfortable  Prebendal  house  ;  seven-stall 


126  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

stables  and  room  for  four  carriages,  so  that  I  can  hold  all 
your  cortege  when  you  come;  looks  to  the  south,  and  is  per- 
fectly snug  and  parsonic ;  masts  of  West-Indiamen  seen  from 
the  windows.  ...  I  have  lived  in  perfect  solitude  ever  since 
I  have  been  here,  but  am  perfectly  happy.  The  novelty  of 
this  place  amuses  me." 

From  the  time  of  his  appointment  to  Bristol,  Sydney- 
Smith  severed  his  connexion  with  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view, holding  that  anonymous  journalism  was  incon- 
sistent with  the  position  of  an  ecclesiastical  dignitary. 
He  had  contributed  to  the  Review  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century ;  and,  by  a  happy  accident,  his  last  utterance, 
in  the  organ  through  which  he  had  so  long  and  so 
strenuously  fought  for  freedom,  was  yet  one  more  plea 
for  Roman  Catholic  emancipation.  Yet  once  again  he 
urged,  Avith  all  his  force,  the  baseness  of  deserting  the 
good  cause,  and  the  danger  and  cruelty  of  delaying 
justice.  — 

"  There  is  little  new  to  be  said ;  but  we  must  not  be  silent, 
or,  in  these  days  of  baseness  and  tergiversation,  we  shall  be 
supposed  to  have  deserted  our  friend  the  Pope,  and  they  will 
say  of  us,  Prostant  venales  apud  Lambeth  et  Whitehall.  God 
forbid  it  should  ever  be  said  of  us  with  justice.  It  is  pleas- 
ant to  loll  and  roll  and  to  accumulate  —  to  be  a  purple-and- 
fine-linen  man,  and  to  be  called  by  some  of  those  nicknames 
which  frail  and  ephemeral  beings  are  so  fond  of  accumulat- 
ing upon  each  other;  —  but  the  best  thing  of  all  is  to  live 
like  honest  men,  and  to  add  something  to  the  cause  of  liber- 
ality, justice,  and  truth. 

•  •"•••• 

"  We  should  like  to  argue  this  matter  with  a  regular  Tory 
Lord,  whose  members  vote  steadily  against  the  Catholic  ques- 
tion. '  I  wonder  that  mere  fear  does  not  make  you  give  up 
the  Catholic  question  !  Do  you  mean  to  put  this  fine  place 
in  danger  —  the  venison  —  the  pictures — the  pheasants  — 
the  cellars — the  hot-house  and  the  grapery?   Should  you  like 


v.]  BRISTOL  127 

to  see  six  or  seven  thousand  French  or  Americans  landed  in 
Ireland,  and  aided  by  a  universal  insurrection  of  the  Catholics? 
Is  it  worth  your  while  to  run  the  risk  of  their  success  ?  What 
evil  from  the  possible  encroachment  of  Catholics,  by  civil 
exertions,  can  equal  the  danger  of  such  a  position  as  this  ? 
How  can  a  man  of  your  carriages,  and  horses,  and  hounds, 
think  of  putting  your  high  fortune  in  such  a  predicament,  and 
crying  out,  like  a  schoolboy  or  a  chaplain,  '  Oh,  we  shall  beat 
them  1  we  shall  put  the  rascals  down  ! '  No  Popery,  I  admit 
to  your  Lordship,  is  a  very  convenient  cry  at  an  election,  and 
has  answered  your  end ;  but  do  not  push  the  matter  too  far. 
To  bring  on  a  civil  war  for  No  Popery,  is  a  very  foolish  pro- 
ceeding in  a  man  who  has  two  courses  and  a  remove !  As  you 
value  your  side-board  of  plate,  your  broad  riband,  your  pier- 
glasses  —  if  obsequious  domestics  and  large  rooms  are  dear  to 
you  —  if  you  love  ease  and  flattery,  titles  and  coats  of  arms — if 
the  labour  of  the  French  cook,  the  dedication  of  the  expecting 
poet,  can  move  you  —  if  you  hope  for  a  long  life  of  side-dishes 
—  if  you  are  not  insensible  to  the  periodical  arrival  of  the 
turtle-fleets  —  emancipate  the  Catholics !  Do  it  for  your  ease, 
do  it  for  your  indolence,  do  it  for  your  safety  —  emancipate 
and  eat,  emancipate  and  drink  —  emancipate,  and  preserve 
the  rent-roll  and  the  family  estate  !  " 

In  conclusion  he  gives  a  w^ord  of  warning  first  to  Ms 
Koman  Catholic  clients,  imploring  them  to  be  patient 
as  well  as  firm ;  and  then  to  the  various  sections  of 
the  "  No  Popery  "  party  in  England.  — 

"To  the  Base.  —  Sweet  children  of  turpitude,  beware !  the 
old  antipopery  people  are  fast  perishing  away.  Take  heed 
that  you  are  not  surprised  by  an  emancipating  king,  or  an 
emancipating  administration.  Leave  a  locus  poenitenticB  !  — 
prepare  a  place  for  retreat  —  get  ready  your  equivocations 
and  denials.  The  dreadful  day  may  yet  come,  when  liberality 
may  lead  to  place  and  power.  We  understand  these  matters 
here.  It  is  safest  to  be  moderately  base  —  to  be  flexible  in 
shame,  and  to  be  always  ready  for  what  is  generous,  good,  and 
just,  when  any  thing  is  to  be  gained  by  virtue." 


128  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

The  suggested  prophecy  had  not  long  to  wait  for  its 
fulfilment.  In  the  summer  of  1828,  William  Vesey 
Fitzgerald,  a  great  landowner  in  County  Clare,  and  one 
of  the  Members  for  that  county,  accepted  office  in 
the  Government  as  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
thereby  vacating  his  seat.  Lord  Beaconsfield  shall  tell 
the  remainder  of  the  story.  "  An  Irish  lawyer,  a  pro- 
fessional agitator,  himself  a  Roman  Catholic  and  there- 
fore ineligible,  announced  himself  as  a  candidate  in 
opposition  to  the  new  minister,  and  on  the  day  of 
election  thirty  thousand  peasants,  setting  at  defiance 
all  the  landowners  of  the  county,  returned  O'Connell 
at  the  head  of  the  poll,  and  placed  among  not  the  least 
memorable  of  historical  events  —  the  Clare  Election."  ^ 

This  election  decided  the  emancipation  of  the 
Roman  Catholics,  and  the  cause,  for  which  Sydney 
Smith  had  striven  so  heroically,  was  won  at  last. 
On  the  28th  of  August  1828  he  wrote  to  a  Roman 
Catholic  friend :  — 

"  Brougham  thinks  the  Catholic  question  as  good  as 
carried ;  but  I  never  think  myself  as  good  as  carried,  till  my 
horse  brings  me  to  my  stable-door.  .  .  .  What  am  I  to  do 
with  my  time,  or  you  with  yours,  after  the  Catholic  question 
is  carried  ?  " 

To  the  same  friend  he  wrote  :  — 

"You  will  be  amused  by  hearing  that  I  am  to  preach 
the  5th  of  November  2  sermon  at  Bristol,  and  to  dine  at 
the  5th  of  November  dinner  with  the  Mayor  and  Corporation 
of  Bristol.  All  sorts  of  bad  theology  are  preached  at  the 
Cathedral  on  that  day,  and  all  sorts  of  bad  toasts  drunk  at 

1  Endymion,  vol.  i.  chapter  vi. 

2  The  special  services  for  "  Gunpowder  Treason  "  and  other  State 
Holy  Days  were  discontinued  by  Royal  Warrant  in  1859. 


v.]  BRISTOL  129 

the  Mansion  House.     I  will  do  neither  the  one  nor  the  other, 
nor  bow  the  knee  in  the  house  of  Rinimon." 

On  the  5th  of  November  1828,  he  wrote  to  Lord 
Holland  :  — 

"  To-day  I  have  preached  an  honest  sermon  before  the 
Mayor  and  Corporation  in  the  Cathedral  —  the  most  Protes- 
tant Corporation  in  England !  They  stared  at  me  with  all 
their  eyes.  Several  of  them  could  not  keep  the  turtle  on 
their  stomachs." 

The  sermon  ^  well  deserved  the  epithet.  It  glanced, 
as  the  occasion  demanded,  at  the  civil  grievances  of 
the  Koman  Catholics,  and  then  it  went  on  to  lay 
down  some  simple  bnt  sufficient  rules  by  which  men 
should  regulate  their  judgment  on  religious  forms  and 
bodies  with  which  they  do  not  sympathize.  — 

"  Our  holy  religion  consists  of  some  doctrines  which 
influence  practice,  and  of  others  which  are  purely  speculative. 
If  religious  errors  be  of  the  former  description,  they  may, 
perhaps,  be  fair  objects  of  human  interference ;  but,  if  the 
opinion  be  merely  theological  and  speculative,  there  the  right 
of  human  interference  seems  to  end,  because  the  necessity 
for  such  interference  does  not  exist.  Any  error  of  this 
nature  is  between  the  Creator  and  the  creature,  —  between 
the  Redeemer  and  the  redeemed.  If  such  opinions  are  not 
the  best  opinions  which  can  be  found,  God  Almighty  will 
punish  the  error,  if  mere  error  seemeth  to  the  Almighty  a 
fit  object  of  punishment.  Why  may  not  a  man  wait  if  God 
waits?  Where  are  we  called  upon  in  Scripture  to  pursue 
men  for  errors  purely  speculative? — to  assist  Heaven  in 
punishing  those  offences  which  belong  only  to  Heaven? — in 
fighting  unasked  for  what  we  deem  to  be  the  battles  of 
God,  —  of  that  patient  and  merciful  God,  who   pities   the 

1  From  Col.  iii.  12,  13—  "  Put  on,  as  the  elect  of  God,  kindness, 
humbleness  of  mind,  meekness,  long-suffering;  forbearing  one 
another,  and  forgiving  one  another." 

K 


130  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

frailties  we  do  not  pity  —  who  forgives  the  errors  we  do  not 
forgive,  —  who  sends  rain  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust,  and 
maketh  His  sun  to  shine  upon  the  evil  and  the  good. 

"  I  shall  conclude  my  sermon  (extended,  I  am  afraid,  already 
to  an  unreasonable  length),  by  reciting  to  you  a  very  short 
and  beautiful  apologue,  taken  from  the  Rabbinical  writers. 
It  is,  I  believe,  quoted  by  Bishop  Taylor  in  his  Holy  Living 
and  Dying.  I  have  not  now  access  to  that  book,  but  I  quote 
it  to  you  from  memory,  and  should  be  made  truly  happy  if 
you  would  quote  it  to  others  from  memory  also. 

" '  As  Abraham  was  sitting  in  the  door  of  his  tent,  there 
came  unto  him  a  wajrf aring  man ;  and  Abraham  gave  him 
water  for  his  feet,  and  set  bread  before  him.  And  Abraham 
said  unto  him.  Let  us  now  worship  the  Lord  our  God  before 
we  eat  of  this  bread.  And  the  wayfaring  man  said  unto 
Abraham,  I  will  not  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  for  thy  God 
is  not  my  God ;  but  I  will  worship  my  God,  even  the  God  of 
my  fathers.  But  Abraham  was  exceeding  wroth  ;  and  he  rose 
up  to  put  the  wayfaring  man  forth  from  the  door  of  his  tent. 
And  the  voice  of  the  Lord  was  heard  in  the  tent  —  Abraham, 
Abraham  !  have  I  borne  with  this  man  for  three  score  and 
ten  years,  and  can'st  thou  not  bear  with  him  for  one 
hour  ? '"  1 

This  sermon  was  published  by  request,  and  the 
preacher  apologized  in  the  preface  for  "  sending  to 
the  press  such  plain  rudiments  of  common  charity 
and  common  sense." 

The  beginning  of  1829  was  darkened  by  what 
Sydney  Smith  called  "the  first  great  misfortune  of 
his  life."  On  the  14th  of  April,  his  eldest  son  Doug- 
las died,  after  a  long  illness,  in  his  twenty-fifth  year. 
Plis  health  had  always  been  delicate,  but,  in  spite  of 

1  This  apologue  (which,  the  preacher  thought,  "would  make  a 
charming  and  useful  placard  against  the  bigoted")  occurs  in  the 
Liberty  of  Prophesying,  and  has  been  traced  to  Geutius,  the  Latin 
translator  of  Saadi. 


v.]  COMBE   FLOREY  131 

repeated  illnesses,  he  had  become  Captain  of  the 
King's  Scholars  at  Westminster,^  and  a  Student  of 
Christ  Church.  His  epitaph  says  — "  His  life  was 
blameless.  His  death  was  the  first  sorrow  he  ever 
occasioned  his  parents,  but  it  was  deep  and  lasting." 
On  the  29th  of  April  his  father  wrote  —  "  Time  and 
the  necessary  exertions  of  life  will  restore  me  " ;  but 
four  months  later  the  note  is  changed. — 

"  I  never  suspected  how  children  weave  themselves  about 
the  heart.  My  son  had  that  quality  which  is  longest  remem- 
bered by  those  who  remain  behind  —  a  deep  and  earnest 
affection  and  respect  for  his  parents.  God  save  you  from 
similar  distress  I  " 

And  again :  — 

"  I  did  not  know  I  had  cai'ed  so  much  for  anybody ;  but 
the  habit  of  providing  for  human  beings,  and  watching  over 
them  for  so  many  years,  generates  a  fund  of  affection,  of  the 
magnitude  of  which  I  was  not  aware." 

Sixteen  years  later,  when  he  lay  dying  and  half- 
conscious,  the  cry  "  Douglas,  Douglas  !  "  was  constantly 
on  his  lips. 

The  prebendal  stall  at  Bristol  carried  with  it  the 
incumbency  of  Halberton,  near  Tiverton ;  and  Sydney 
Smith  exchanged  the  living  of  Foston  for  that  of 
Combe  Florey  in  Somerset,  which  could  be  held 
conjointly  with  Halberton.     On  the  14th  of  July  1829 

1"  Having  become  a  King's  Scholar,  the  hardships  and  cru- 
elties he  suffered,  as  a  junior  boy,  from  bis  fag-master,  were  such 
as  at  one  time  very  nearly  forced  us  to  remove  him  from  the 
school.  He  was  taken  home  for  a  short  period,  to  recover  from 
his  bruises,  and  restore  his  eye.  His  first  act,  on  becoming  Cap- 
tain himself,  was  to  endeavour  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the 
juniors,  and  to  obtain  additional  comforts  for  them  from  the  Head 
Master,"  ^/'ro?n  Mrs.  Sydnnj  Smith's  Journal. 


132  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

he  wrote  from  the  "  Sacred  Valley  of  Flowers,"  as  he 
loved  to  call  it :  — 

"I  am  extremely  pleased  with  Combe  Florey,  and  pro- 
nounce it  to  be  a  very  pretty  place  in  a  very  beautiful 
country.     The  house  I  shall  make  decently  convenient." 

"  I  need  not  say  how  my  climate  is  improved.  The 
neighbourhood  much  the  same  as  all  other  neighbourhoods. 
Red  wine  and  white,  soup  and  fish,  commonplace  dulness 
and  prejudice,  bad  wit  and  good-nature.  I  am,  after  my 
manner,  making  my  place  perfect:  and  have  twenty-eight 
people  constantly  at  work." 

"  I  am  going  on  fighting  with  bricklayers  and  carpenters, 
and  shall  ultimately  make  a  very  pretty  place  and  a  very 
good  house."  "  I  continue  to  be  delighted  with  the  country. 
My  parsonage  will  be  perfection.  The  harvest  is  got  in 
without  any  rain.  The  Cider  is  such  an  enormous  crop,  that 
it  is  sold  at  ten  shillings  a  hogshead;  so  that  a  human 
creature  may  lose  his  reason  for  a  penny." 

"  Luttrell  came  over  for  a  day,  from  whence  I  know  not, 
but  I  thought  not  from  good  pastures ;  at  least,  he  had  not 
his  usual  soup-and-pattie  look.  There  was  a  forced  smile 
upon  his  countenance,  which  seemed  to  indicate  plain  roast 
and  boiled;  and  a  sort  of  apple-pudding  depression,  as  if 
he  had  been  staying  with  a  clergyman.  .  .  .  He  was  very 
agreeable,  but  spoke  too  lightly,  I  thought,  of  veal  soup.  1 
took  him  aside,  and  reasoned  the  matter  with  him,  but  in 
vain ;  to  speak  the  truth,  Luttrell  is  not  steady  in  his 
judgments  on  dishes.  Individual  failures  with  him  soon 
degenerate  into  generic  objections,  till,  by  some  fortunate 
accident,  he  eats  himself  into  better  opinions.  A  person  of 
more  calm  reflection  thinks  not  only  of  what  he  is  consuming 
at  that  moment,  but  of  the  soups  of  the  same  kind  he  has 
met  with  in  a  long  course  of  dining,  and  which  have  gradu- 
ally and  justly  elevated  the  species.  I  am  perhaps  making 
too  much  of  this ;  but  the  failures  of  a  man  of  sense  are 
always  painful." 

One  of  the  chief  features  in  the  restored  Kectory  of 


v.]  COMBE  FLOREY  133 

Combe  Plorey  was  a  library,  twenty-eight  feet  long 
and  eiglit  high,  ending  in  a  bay-window  supported  by 
pillars,  and  looking  into  a  brilliant  garden.  This  room 
had  been  made  by  "  throwing  a  pantry,  a  passage,  and 
a  shoe-hole  together."  Three  sides  of  it  were  covered 
with  books.  "'No  furniture  so  charming  as  books," 
said  Sydney,  "  even  if  you  never  open  them,  or  read  a 
single  word."  He  passionately  loved  light  and  colour, 
sunshine  and  flowers ;  and  all  his  books  were  bound 
in  the  most  vivid  blues  and  reds.  "  What  makes  a  fire 
so  pleasant  is  that  it  is  a  live  thing  in  a  dead  room." 
A  visitor  thus  describes  him  at  his  literary  work :  — 

"  At  a  large  table  in  the  bay-window,  with  his  desk  before 
him  —  on  one  end  of  this  table  a  case,  something  hke  a  small 
deal  music-stand,  filled  with  manuscript  books  —  on  the  other 
a  large  deal  tray, filled  with  a  leaden  ink-stand,  containing  ink 
enough  for  a  county ;  a  magnifying  glass ;  a  carpenter's  rule ; 
several  large  steel  pens,  which  it  was  high  treason  to  touch ; 
a  glass  bowl  full  of  shot  and  water,  to  clean  these  precious 
pens ;  and  some  red  tape,  which  he  called  '  one  of  the 
grammars  of  life ' ;  a  measuring  line,  and  various  other 
articles,  more  useful  than  ornamental.  At  this  writing 
establishment,  unique  of  its  kind,  he  could  turn  his  mind 
with  equal  facility,  in  company  or  alone,  to  any  subject, 
whether  of  business,  study,  politics,  instruction,  or  amuse- 
ment, and  move  the  minds  of  his  hearers  to  laughter  or  tears 
at  his  pleasure." 

The  daily  life  at  Combe  Florey  was  eminently 
patriarchal.  He  lived  surrounded  by  children,  grand- 
children, and  friends  ;  chatting  with  the  poor,  comfort- 
ing the  sick,  and  petting  the  babies  of  the  village. 
Old  and  young  alike  he  doctored  with  extraordinary 
vehemence  and  persistency.  "As  I  don't  shoot  or 
hunt,  it  is  my  only  rural  amusement."     He  wrote  to 


134  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

a  friend —  "  The  influenza  to  my  great  joy  lias  appeared 
here,  and  I  am  in  high  medical  practice."  ''  This  is 
the  house  to  be  ill  in,"  he  used  to  say.  "  I  take  it 
as  a  delicate  compliment  when  my  guests  have  a  slight 
illness  here.  Come  and  see  my  apothecary's  shop." 
The  "  shop  "  was  a  room  filled  on  one  side  with  drugs 
and  on  the  other  with  groceries.  "  Life  is  a  difficult 
thing  in  the  country,  I  assure  you,  and  it  requires  a 
good  deal  of  forethought  to  steer  the  ship,  when  you 
live  twelve  miles  from  a  lemon." 

The  church  of  Combe  Florey  was  described  by 
Francis  Jeffrey  as  "a  horrid  old  barn."  There  the 
Eector  performed  two  services  a  Sunday,  celebrated 
the  Holy  Communion  once  a  month,  and  preached  his 
practical  sermons,  transcribed  from  his  own  execrable 
manuscript  by  a  sedulous  clerk.  "I  like,"  he  said,  "  to 
look  down  upon  my  congregation  —  to  fire  into  them. 
The  common  people  say  I  am  a  bouUl  preacher,  for  I 
like  to  have  my  arms  free,  and  to  thump  the  pulpit." 
A  lady  dressed  in  crimson  velvet  he  welcomed  with  the 
words,  "  Exactly  the  colour  of  my  preaching  cushion ! 
I  really  can  hardly  keep  my  hands  of£  you." 

An  anonymous  correspondent  kindly  furnishes  me 
with  this  description  of  the  Valley  of  Flowers  as  it  was 
in  more  recent  years :  — 

"  I  visited  Combe  Florey,  with  camera  and  vasculum,  iu 
1893.  It  is  one  of  the  loveliest  spots  in  that  district  of  lovely 
villages,  lying  in  the  Vale  of  Taunton  on  the  southern  slope 
of  the  Quantocks.  The  parsonage  is  entirely  unchanged : 
there  is  Sydney's  study,  a  low-ceilinged  I'oom  supported 
partly  by  pillars,  level  with  the  garden  and  opening  into  it. 
There  is  the  old-fashioned  fireplace  by  which  he  and  his  wife 
sate  opposite  each  other  in  his  last  illness.  '  Mrs.  Sydney  has 
eight  distinct  illnesses,  and  I  have  nine.   We  take  something 


v.]  REFORM  135 

every  hour,  and  pass  the  mixture  from  one  to  the  other.' 
Outside  still  grow  his  Conifers,  a  large  Atlantic  Cedar  and  a 
Deodara;  unchanged  too  are  the  palings  over  which  Jack  and 
Jill  1  peered  with  antlered  heads.  Old  villagers  still  talk  of 
his  medical  dispensary,  and  of  the  care  with  which  he  drove 
round  to  collect  and  carry  into  Taunton  their  monthly 
deposits  for  the  Savings  Bank." 

Meanwhile,  great  events  were  transacting  themselves 
in  the  political  world,  and  they  had  an  important  bear- 
ing on  the  tranquil  life  of  Combe  Florey.  On  the  4th 
of  May  1830,  Sydney  Smith  wrote  from  London  to  his 
wife  in  the  country :  — 

"  The  King  is  going  downhill  as  before,  but  seems  to  be  a 
long  time  in  the  descent.  All  kinds  of  intrigues  are  going  on 
about  change  of  ]\Iinistry,  and  all  kinds  of  hopes  and  fears 
afloat.  Nothing  is  more  improbable  than  that  I  should  be 
made  a  Bishop,  and,  if  I  ever  had  the  opportunity,  I  am  now, 
when  far  removed  from  it,  decidedly  of  opinion  that  it  would 
be  the  greatest  act  of  folly  and  absurdity  to  accept  it  —  to  live 
with  foolish  people,  to  do  foolish  and  formal  things  all  day, 
to  hold  my  tongue,  or  to  twist  it  into  conversation  unnatural 
to  me." 

"King  George  iv.  died  on  the  26th  of  June.  The 
accession  of  William  iv.,  who  was  supposed  to  have 
some  tendencies  towards  Whiggism,  greatly  stimulated 
the  demand  for  Parliamentary  Reform  ;  and  the  revo- 
lution in  France,  which  dethroned  Charles  x.,  gave  a 
strong  impetus  to  the  democratic  forces  in  England. 
Parliament  was  dissolved  on  the  24th  of  July.  On 
the  14th  of  August  Charles  Greville  wrote,  "  The  elec- 
tions are  still  going  against  the  Government,  and  the 
signs  of  the  times  are  all  for  reform  and  retrench- 
ment, and  against  slavery."      In  writing  to  congratu- 

1  Two  donkeys,  which  were  disguised  as  deer  for  the  astonish- 
ment of  visitors. 


136  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

late  a  young  Roman  Catholic  who  had  been  elected 
for  Carlisle,  Sydney  Smith  said  — 

"  I  rejoice  iu  the  temple  which  has  been  reared  to  Tolera- 
tion ;  and  I  am  proud  that  I  worked  as  a  bricklayer's  labourer 
at  it  —  without  pay,  and  with  the  enmity  and  abuse  of  those 
who  were  unfavourable  to  its  construction."  ^ 

The  new  Parliament  met  on  the  26th  of  October. 
On  the  2nd  of  November,  in  the  debate  on  the  Address, 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  made  a  vehement  declaration 
against  Reform.  This  was  the  signal  for  an  immense 
outcry.  There  were  mobs  and  riots  everywhere.  The 
King's  projected  visit  to  the  City  on  Lord  Mayor's 
Day  was  abandoned.  The  Tory  Government  were 
beaten  on  a  motion  relating  to  the  new  Civil  List. 
*'  I^ever  was  any  Administration  so  completely  and 
so  suddenly  destroyed ;  and,  I  believe,  entirely  by 
the  Duke's  declaration."  Lord  Grey^  became  Prime 
Minister,  as  the  head  of  a  Whig  administration  pledged 
to  Reform.  Soon  afterwards  Sydney  Smith  wrote  to 
a  friend  — 

"  I  tliink  Lord  Grey  will  give  me  some  preferment  if  he 
stays  in  long  enough  ;  but  the  upper  parsons  live  vindictively, 
and  evince  their  aversion  to  a  Whig  Ministry  by  an  improved 
health." 

The  Reform  Bill  was  brought  in  on  the  1st  of  March 
1831.  Sydney  thought  it  ''  a  magnificent  measure,  as 
wise  as  it  is  bold."  Meetings  of  Reformers  were  held 
all  over  the  country  to  support  it.  Such  a  meeting 
was  held  at  Taunton  on  the  9th  of  March,  and  the 
Rector  of  Combe  Florey  attended  and  spoke. 

"  This,"  he  said,  "  is  the  greatest  measure  which  has  ever 

1  The  Roman  Catholic  Emancipation  Bill  had  become  law  on  the 
13th  of  April  1829. 

2  Charles,  2ud  Earl  Grey  (17G1-1815). 


v.]  EEFORM  137 

been  before  Parliament  in  my  time,  and  the  most  pregnant 
with  good  or  evil  to  the  country;  and,  though  I  seldom  meddle 
with  political  meetings,  I  could  not  reconcile  it  to  ray  con- 
science to  be  absent  from  this.  Every  year  for  this  half  century 
the  question  of  Reform  has  been  pressing  upon  us,  till  it  has 
swelled  up  at  last  into  this  great  and  awful  combination;  so 
that  almost  every  City  and  every  Borough  in  England  are  at 
this  moment  assembled  for  the  same  purpose  and  ai'e  doing 
the  same  thing  we  are  doing." 

A  great  part  of  the  controversy  turned  on  the  dis- 
franchisement of  the  "Pocket  Boroughs,"  and  this  was  a 
subject  which  immediately  suggested  a  liappy  apologue : 

"  These  very  same  politicians  are  now  looking  in  an  agony 
of  terror  at  the  disfranchisement  of  Corporations  containing 
twenty  or  thirty  persons,  sold  to  their  rei^resentatives,  who 
are  themselves  perhaps  sold  to  the  Government  :  and  to  put 
an  end  to  these  enormous  abuses  is  called  Corporation  robbery, 
and  there  are  some  persons  wild  enough  to  talk  of  compensa- 
tion. This  principle  of  compensation  you  will  consider  perhaps, 
in  the  following  instance,  to  have  been  carried  as  far  as  sound 
discretion  permits.  When  I  was  a  young  man,  the  place  in 
England  I  remember  as  most  notorious  for  highwaymen  and 
their  exploits  was  Finchley  Common,  near  the  metropolis  ; 
but  Finchley  Common,  in  the  progress  of  improvement,  came 
to  be  enclosed,  and  the  highwaymen  lost  by  these  means  the 
opportunity  of  exercising  their  gallant  vocation.  I  remember 
a  friend  of  mine  proposed  to  draw  up  for  them  a  petition  to 
the  House  of  Commons  for  compensation,  which  ran  in  this 
manner  —  '  We,  your  loyal  highwaymen  of  Finchley  Common 
and  its  neighbourhood,  having  at  great  expense  laid  in  a  stock 
of  blunderbusses,  pistols,  and  other  instruments  for  plunder- 
ing the  public,  and  finding  ourselves  impeded  in  the  exercise 
of  our  calling  by  the  said  enclosure  of  the  said  Common  of 
Finchley,  humbly  petition  your  Honourable  House  w'ill  be 
pleased  to  assign  to  us  such  compensation  as  your  Honourable 
House  in  its  wdsdom  and  justice  may  think  fit.'  —  Gentlemen, 
I  must  leave  the  application  to  you.  .  .  . 


138  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

"  The  greater  part  of  human  improvements,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  are  made  after  war,  tumult,  bloodshed,  and  civil  commo- 
tion :  mankind  seem  to  object  to  every  species  of  gratuitous 
happiness,  and  to  consider  every  advantage  as  too  cheap, 
which  is  not  purchased  by  some  calamity.  I  shall  esteem  it 
as  a  singular  act  of  God's  providence,  if  this  great  nation, 
guided  by  these  warnings  of  history,  not  waiting  till  tumult 
for  Reform,  nor  trusting  Reform  to  the  rude  hands  of  the 
lowest  of  the  people,  shall  amend  their  decayed  institutions  at 
a  period  when  they  are  ruled  by  a  popular  monarch,  guided 
by  an  upright  minister,  and  blessed  with  profound  peace." 

On  the  22nd  of  March  the  Second  Keading  was 
carried  by  a  majority  of  one.  But  directly  afterwards 
the  Government  was  defeated  on  an  amendment  in 
Committee,  and  promptly  appealed  to  the  country. 
Parliament  was  dissolved  on  the  23rd  of  April.  "  Bold 
King !  bold  Ministers ! "  wrote  Sydney  on  the  25th. 
Popular  feeling  was  now  really  roused.  "The  Bill, 
the  whole  Bill,  and  nothing  but  the  Bill "  was  the 
war-cry  from  Caithness  to  Cornwall.  Lord  John 
Russell,  who  had  brought  the  Bill  into  Parliament, 
was  the  hero  of  the  hour.  He  contested  Devonshire 
at  the  General  Election,  and  Sydney,  who  had  a  vote 
for  the  county,  met  him  at  Exeter.  — 

"  The  people  along  the  road  were  very  much  disappointed 
by  his  smallness.  I  told  them  he  was  much^arger  before  the 
Bill  was  tlirown  out,  but  was  reduced  by  excessive  anxiety 
about  the  people.     This  brought  tears  into  their  eyes !  " 

At  this  juncture  Sydney  composed  (and  published  in 
the  name  of  an  imaginary  Mr.  Dyson),  a  "  Speech  to 
the  Freeholders  on  Reform."  — 

"Stick  to  the  Bill — it  is  your  Magna  Charta,  and  your 
Runnymede.  King  John  made  a  present  to  the  Barons. 
King  William  has  made  a  similar  present  to  you.     Never 


v.]  KEFORM  139 

mind  common  qualities,  good  in  common  times.  If  a  man 
does  not  vote  for  the  Bill,  he  is  miclean  —  the  plague-spot  is 
upon  him  —  push  him  into  the  lazaretto  of  the  last  century, 
with  Wetherein  and  Sadler  ^  —  purify  tlie  air  before  you 
approach  him  —  bathe  your  hands  in  Chloride  of  Lime,  if 
you  have  been  contaminated  by  his  touch.  .  .  . 

"  The  thing  I  cannot,  and  will  not  bear,  is  this  ;  —  what 
right  has  this  Lord,  or  tJiat  Marquis,  to  buy  ten  seats  in 
Parliament,  in  the  shape  of  Boroughs,  and  then  to  make  laws 
to  govern  me?  And  how  are  these  masses  of  power  re-distri- 
buted? The  eldest  son  of  my  Lord  is  just  come  from  Eton 
—  he  knows  a  good  deal  about  ^^neas  and  Dido,  Apollo  and 
Daphne  —  and  that  is  all ;  and  to  this  boy  his  father  gives  a 
six-hundredth  part  of  the  power  of  making  laws,  as  he  would 
give  him  a  horse  or  a  double-barrelled  gun.  Then  Vellum, 
the  steward,  is  put  in  —  an  admirable  man ;  — he  has  raised  the 
estates  —  watched  the  progress  of  the  family  Road-and-Canal 
Bills  —  and  Vellum  shall  help  to  rule  over  the  people  of  Eng- 
land. A  neighbouring  country  gentleman,  Mr.  Plumpkin, 
hunts  with  my  Lord  —  opens  him  a  gate  or  two,  while  the 
hounds  are  running —  dines  with  my  Lord  —  agrees  with  my 
Lord  —  wishes  he  could  rival  the  South-Down  sheep  of  my 
Lord  —  and  upon  Plumpkin  is  conferred  a  portion  of  the 
government.  Then  there  is  a  distant  relation  of  the  same 
name,  in  the  County  Militia,  with  white  teeth,  who  calls  up 
the  carriage  at  the  Opera,  and  is  always  wishing  O'Connell 
was  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  —  then  a  barrister,  who 
has  written  an  article  in  the  Quarterly,  and  is  very  likely  to 
speak,  and  refute  M'Culloch ;  and  these  five  people,  in  whose 
nomination  I  have  no  more  agency  than  I  have  in  the  nomi- 
nation of  the  toll-keepers  of  the  Bosphorus,  are  to  make  laws 
for  me  and  my  family  —  to  put  their  hands  in  my  purse,  and 
to  sway  the  future  destinies  of  this  country ;  and  when  the 
neighbours  step  in,  and  beg  permission  to  say  a  few  words 
before  these  persons  are  chosen,  there  is  an  universal  cry  of 

1  Sir  Charles  Wetherell  (1770-1846),  Attorney-General,  and 
Recorder  of  Bristol. 

2  Michael  Thomas  Sadler  (1780-1835),  M.P.  for  Newark. 


140  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

ruin,  confusion,  and  destruction  —  'We  have  become  a  great 
people  under  Vellum  and  Plumpkiu  —  under  Vellum  and 
Plumpkin  our  ships  have  covered  the  ocean  —  under  Vellum 
and  Plumpkin  our  armies  have  seciired  the  strength  of  the 
Hills  —  to  turn  out  Vellum  and  Plumpkin  is  not  Reform, 
but  Revolution.'  " 

It  was  said  by  the  opponents  of  tlie  Bill  that  the 
existing  system  worked  well. — 

"  Work  well !  How  does  it  work  well,  when  every  human 
being  in-doors  and  out  (with  the  exception  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington)  says  it  must  be  made  to  work  better,  or  it  will 
soon  cease  to  work  at  all?  It  is  little  short  of  absolute 
nonsense  to  call  a  government  good,  which  the  great  mass 
of  Englishmen  would,  before  twenty  years  were  elapsed,  if 
Reform  were  denied,  rise  up  and  destroy.  Of  what  use  have 
all  the  cruel  laws  been  of  Perceval,  Eldon,  and  Castlereagh, 
to  extinguish  Reform  ?  Lord  John  Russell,  and  his  abettors, 
would  have  been  committed  to  gaol  twenty  years  ago  for  half 
only  of  his  present  Reform  ;  and  now  relays  of  the  people 
would  drag  them  from  London  to  Edinburgh  ;  at  which  latter 
city  we  are  told,  by  Mr.  Dundas,  that  there  is  no  eagerness 
for  Reform.  Five  minutes  before  Moses  struck  the  rock,  this 
gentleman  would  have  said  that  there  was  no  eagerness  for 
water. 

"  There  are  two  methods  of  making  alterations  :  the  one  is 
to  despise  the  applicants,  to  begin  with  refusing  every  conces- 
sion, then  to  relax  by  making  concessions  which  are  always 
too  late ;  by  offering  in  I83I  what  is  then  too  late,  but 
would  have  been  cheerfully  accepted  in  18.30  —  gradually  to 
O'Connellize  the  country,  till  at  last,  after  this  process  has 
gone  on  for  some  time,  the  alarm  becomes  too  great,  and 
every  thing  is  conceded  in  hurry  and  confusion.  In  the  mean 
time  fresh  conspiracies  have  been  hatched  by  the  long  delay, 
and  no  gratitude  is  expressed  for  what  has  been  extorted  by 
fear.  In  this  way  peace  was  concluded  with  America,  and 
Emancipation  granted  to  the  Catholics  ;  and  in  this  way  the 
War  of  Complexions  will  be  finished  in  the  West  Indies.    The 


v.]  REFORM  141 

other  method  is,  to  see  at  a  distance  that  the  thing  must  be 
done,  and  to  do  it  effectually,  and  at  once ;  to  take  it  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  common  people,  and  to  carry  the  measure  in 
a  manly  liberal  manner,  so  as  to  satisfy  the  great  majority. 
The  merit  of  this  belongs  to  the  administration  of  Lord  Grey. 
He  is  the  only  jMinister  I  know  of,  who  has  begun  a  great 
measure  in  good  time,  conceded  at  the  beginning  of  twenty 
years  what  would  have  been  extorted  at  the  end  of  it,  and 
prevented  that  folly,  violence,  and  ignorance,  which  emanate 
from  a  long  denial  and  extorted  concession  of  justice  to  great 
masses  of  human  beings.  I  believe  the  question  of  Reform, 
or  any  dangerous  agitation  of  it,  is  set  at  rest  for  thirty  or 
forty  years  ;  and  this  is  an  eternity  in  politics. 

"  I  am  old  and  tired,  —  thank  me  for  ending ;  but  one  word 
more  before  I  sit  down.  I  am  old,  but  I  thank  God  I  have 
lived  to  see  more  than  my  observations  on  human  nature 
taught  me  I  had  any  right  to  expect.  I  have  lived  to  see  an 
honest  King,  in  whose  word  his  ministers  could  trust.  I  have 
lived  to  see  a  King  with  a  good  heart,  who,  surrounded  by 
nobles,  thinks  of  common  men  ;  who  loves  the  great  mass  of 
English  people,  and  wishes  to  be  loved  by  them ;  and  who,  in 
spite  of  clamour,  interest,  prejudice,  and  fear,  has  the  manli- 
ness to  carry  these  wise  changes  into  immediate  execution. 
Gentlemen,  farewell !     Shout  for  the  King  !  "^ 

Having  done  his  best  for  the  good  cause  in  the 
country,  Sydney  S)nith  returned  to  London  to  watch 
the  results.  On  the  6th  of  June  Macaulay  met  him 
at  dinner,  and  writes  thus  next  day :  — 

"  Sydney  Smith  leaves  London  on  the  20th  —  the  day  before 
Parliament  meets  for  business.  I  advised  him  to  stay  and  see 
something  of  his  friends,  who  would  be  coming  up  to  London. 
'  My  flock ! '  said  this  good  shepherd,  '  my  dear  sir,  remember 
my  flock ! 

"  The  hungry  sheep  look  up  and  are  not  fed." ' 

1  This  is  the  "  Speech  respecting  the  Reform  Bill "  in  Sydney 
Smith's  Collected  Works. 


142  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

"...  He  begged  me  to  come  and  see  him  at  Combe  Florey. 
'  There  I  am,  sir,  in  a  delightful  parsonage,  about  which  I 
care  a  great  deal,  and  a  delightful  country,  about  which  I  do 
not  care  a  straw.' " 

When  the  new  House  of  Commons  assembled,  it  was 
found  to  contain  a  great  majority  of  Reformers.  A 
fresh  Bill  was  introduced,  and  passed  the  Second 
Reading,  by  a  majority  of  136,  on  the  8th  of  July. 
While  it  was  ploughing  its  way  through  Com- 
mittee, the  Coronation  of  William  iv.  took  place 
on  the  8th  of  September.  The  solemnity  was  made 
an  occasion  for  public  rejoicings  in  the  country, 
and  loyalty  was  judiciously  reinforced  by  the  sugges- 
tion that  the  King  was,  in  this  great  controversy,  on 
the  same  side  as  his  people.  At  a  meeting  at  Taunton, 
Sydney  Smith  spoke  as  follows  :  — 

"  I  am  particularly  happy  to  assist  on  this  occasion,  because 
I  think  that  the  accession  of  the  present  King  is  a  marked 
and  important  era  in  English  history.  Another  coronation 
has  taken  place  since  I  have  been  in  the  world,  but  I  never 
assisted  at  its  celebration.  I  saw  in  it  a  change  of  masters, 
not  a  change  of  system.  I  did  not  understand  tlie  joy  which 
it  occasioned.  I  did  not  feel  it,  and  I  did  not  counterfeit 
what  I  did  not  feel. 

"  I  think  very  differently  of  the  accession  of  his  present 
Majesty.  I  believe  I  see  in  that  accession  a  great  probability 
of  serious  improvement,  and  a  great  increase  of  public  happi- 
ness. The  evils  which  have  been  long  complained  of  by  bold 
and  intelligent  men  are  now  universally  admitted.  The 
public  feeling,  which  has  been  so  often  apjjealed  to,  is  now 
intensely  excited.  The  remedies  which  have  so  often  been 
called  for  are  now,  at  last,  vigorously,  wisely,  and  faithfully 
applied.  I  admire,  gentlemen,  in  the  present  King,  his  love 
of  peace  —  I  admire  in  him  his  disposition  to  economy,  and  I 
admire  in  him,  above  all,  his  faithful  and  honourable  conduct 


v.]  REFORM  143 

to  those  who  happen  to  be  his  ministers.  He  was,  I  believe, 
quite  as  faithful  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  as  to  Lord  Grey, 
and  would,  I  have  no  doubt,  be  quite  as  faithful  to  the  politi- 
cal enemies  of  Lord  Grey  (if  he  thought  fit  to  employ  them) 
as  he  is  to  Lord  Grey  himself.  There  is  in  this  reign  no 
secret  influence,  no  double  ministry  —  on  whomsoever  he 
confers  the  office,  to  him  he  gives  that  confidence  without 
which  the  office  cannot  be  holden  with  honour,  nor  executed 
with  effect.  He  is  not  only  a  peaceful  King,  and  an  eco- 
nomical King,  but  he  is  an  honest  King.  So  far,  I  believe, 
every  individual  of  this  company  will  go  with  me. 

•  ••••«• 

"  There  is  an  argument  I  have  often  heard,  and  that  is  this 
—  Are  we  to  be  afraid?  —  is  this  measure  to  be  carried  by 
intimidation  ?  —  is  the  House  of  Lords  to  be  overawed  ?  But 
this  style  of  argument  proceeds  from  confounding  together 
two  sets  of  feelings  which  are  entirely  distinct  —  personal 
fear  and  political  fear.  If  I  am  afraid  of  voting  against  this 
bill,  because  a  mob  may  gather  about  the  House  of  Lords  — 
because  stones  may  be  flung  at  my  head  —  because  my  house 
may  be  attacked  by  a  mob,  I  am  a  poltroon,  and  unfit  to 
meddle  with  public  affairs.  But  I  may  rationally  be  afraid 
of  producing  great  public  agitation ;  I  may  be  honourably 
afraid  of  flinging  people  into  secret  clubs  and  conspiracies  — 
I  may  be  wisely  afraid  of  making  the  aristocracy  hateful  to 
the  great  body  of  the  people.  This  surely  has  no  more  to  do 
with  fear  than  a  loose  identity  of  name ;  it  is  in  fact  prudence 
of  the  highest  order;  the  deliberate  reflexion  of  a  wise  man, 
who  does  not  like  what  he  is  going  to  do,  but  likes  still  less 
the  consequences  of  not  doing  it,  and  who  of  two  evils  chooses 
the  least. 

"There  are  some  men  much  afraid  of  what  is  to  happen ; 
my  lively  hope  of  good  is,  I  confess,  mingled  with  very  little 
apprehension ;  but  of  one  thing  I  must  be  candid  enough  to 
say  that  I  am  much  afraid,  and  that  is  of  the  opinion  now 
increasing,  that  the  people  are  become  indifferent  to  reform  ; 
and  of  that  opinionlam  afraid,  because  I  believe  in  an  evilhour 
it  may  lead  some  misguided  members  of  the  Upper  House  of 


144  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Parliament  to  vote  against  the  bill.  As  for  the  opinion  it- 
self, I  hold  it  in  the  utmost  contempt.  The  people  are  waiting 
in  virtuous  patience  for  the  completion  of  the  bill,  because 
they  know  it  is  in  the  hands  of  men  who  do  not  mean  to  de- 
ceive them.  I  do  not  believe  they  have  given  up  one  atom  of 
reform  —  I  do  not  believe  that  a  great  people  were  ever  before 
so  firmly  bent  upon  any  one  measure.  I  put  it  to  any  man 
of  common,  sense,  whether  he  believes  it  possible,  after  the 
King  and  Parliament  have  acted  as  they  have  done,  that  the 
people  will  ever  be  content  with  much  less  than  the  present 
bill  contains.  If  a  contrary  principle  be  acted  upon,  and  the 
bill  attempted  to  be  got  rid  of  altogether,  I  confess  I  tremble 
for  the  consequences,  which  I  believe  will  be  of  the  worst 
and  most  painful  description;  and  this  I  say  deliberately, 
after  the  most  diligent  and  extensive  enquiiy.  Upon  that 
diligent  enquiry  I  repeat  again  my  firm  conviction,  that  the 
desire  of  reform  has  increased,  not  diminished;  that  the 
present  repose  is  not  indifference,  but  the  calmness  of  vic- 
tory, and  the  tranquillity  of  success.  When  I  see  all  the 
wishes  and  appetites  of  created  beings  changed,  —  when  I 
see  an  eagle,  that,  after  long  confinement,  has  escaped  into 
the  air,  come  back  to  his  cage  and  his  chain,  —  when  I  see 
the  emancipated  negi'o  asking  again  for  the  hoe  which  has 
broken  down  his  strength,  and  the  lash  which  has  tortured 
his  body  —  I  will  then,  and  not  till  then,  believe  that  the 
English  people  will  return  to  their  ancient  degradation  — 
that  they  will  hold  out  their  repentant  hands  for  those  mana- 
cles which  at  this  moment  lie  broken  into  links  at  their  feet." 

This  fine  speech  was  delivered  at  a  crucial  moment  of 
the  speaker's  personal  fortunes.  Whether  he  would 
or  would  not  have  made  a  good  bishop,  and  whether 
the  Whigs  were  or  were  not  justly  chargeable  with 
cowardice  ^  in  not  having  raised  him  to  the  Episcopal 

1  Lord  Houghton  wrote  in  1873 — "I  heard  Lord  Melbourne 
say,  '  Sydney  Smith  has  done  more  for  the  Whigs  than  all  the 
clergy  put  together,  and  our  not  making  him  a  bishop  was  mere 
cowardice.'  " 


v.]  PROMOTION  145 

Bench,  are  disputable  points.  It  seems  certain,  from 
his  own  declarations,  that  in  later  life  he  would  have 
declined  the  honour;  but  there  was  a  time  when  it 
might  have  been  offered,  and  would  probably  have  been 
accepted.  When  he  feared  that  England  might  be 
dragged  into  war  with  France  on  behalf  of  Spain,  he 
composed  a  skit  purporting  to  be  a  Protest  entered  on 
the  Journals  of  the  Lords  by  the  Bishop  of  Worcester, 
and  signed  it  "  Sydney  Vigorn."  ^  The  Bishop  of 
Worcester^  died  on  the  6th  of  September  1831,  and 
Lord  Grey  gave  the  vacant  mitre  to  a  Tory.^ 
Sydney's  emotions  are  not  recorded;  but  on  the 
10th  of  September  Lord  Grey  offered  him  a  Residen- 
tiary Canonry  of  St.  Paul's  —  "a  snug  thing,  let  me 
tell  you,  being  worth  full  £2000  a  year."  It  was 
not  an  overwhelming  reward  for  such  long  and  such 
brilliant  service  to  the  causes  which  Lord  Grey  repre- 
sented, but  it  was  a  recognition  —  and  it  was  enough. 
He  was  installed  on  the  27th  of  September,  and  on 
the  day  of  his  installation  he  wrote  to  a  friend  —  "  It 
puts  me  at  my  ease  for  life.  I  asked  for  nothing  — 
never  did  anything  shabby  to  procure  preferment. 
These  are  pleasing  recollections." 


1  The  archaic  signature  of  the  Bishops  of  Worcester.  Mrs. 
Austin  transcribes  it  "Vigour,"  and  puts  the  Protest  among 
the  letters  of  1831.  Sir  Spencer  Walpole  points  out  that  it 
probably  belongs  to  the  year  1823,  when  Lord  Ellenborough 
moved  an  Address  to  the  Crown  in  favour  of  intervention  in 
Spain. 

2  Ffolliot  H.  W.  Cornewall  (1754-1831). 

8  Robert  James  Carr  (1774-1841).  It  was  said  that  this 
appointment  was  due  to  a  promise  made  by  George  iv.,  whom 
Dr.  Carr,  formerly  Vicar  of  Brighton,  had  attended  in  his  last 
illness. 

I. 


146  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap.  v. 

Soon  afterwards,  he  was  presented  on  his  appoint- 
ment, and  met  with  a  misadventure  at  the  Palace.  — 

"  I  went  to  Court,  and,  horrible  to  relate,  with  strings  to 
my  shoes  instead  of  buckles  —  not  from  Jacobinism,  but 
ignorance.  I  saw  two  or  three  Tory  lords  looking  at  me  with 
dismay,  was  informed  by  the  Clerk  of  the  Closet  of  my  sin, 
and,  gathering  my  sacerdotal  petticoats  about  me  (like  a  lady 
conscious  of  thick  ankles)  I  escaped  further  observation." 


CHAPTER  VI 

ST.  Paul's — the  parallelogram — archdeacon 

SINGLETON  —  COLLECTED    WORKS 

Meanwhile  the  Reform  Bill  had  passed  the  House  of 
Commons  and  was  sent  up  to  the  House  of  Lords. 
In  the  summer,  Sydney  Smith  had  written  to  Lord 
Grey  —  "  You  may  be  sure  that  any  attempt  of  the 
Lords  to  throw  out  the  Bill  will  be  the  signal  for 
the  most  energetic  resistance  from  one  end  of  the 
kingdom  to  another."  The  Lords  faced  the  risk,  and 
threw  out  the  Bill  on  the  8th  of  October  1831. 

Sydney's  prophecy  was  promptly  justified,  and  the 
most  threatening  violence  and  disorder  broke  out  in 
the  great  centres  of  industrial  population.  Whigs 
and  Radicals  alike  rallied,  as  one  man,  to  the  cause  of 
Reform.  On  the  11th  of  October  a  public  meeting 
was  held  at  Taunton  to  protest  against  the  action  of 
the  Lords  and  express  unabated  confidence  in  the 
Government.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Sydney 
Smith  made  the  most  famous  of  his  political  speeches. 
He  deplored  the  collision  between  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament,  but  he  was  not  the  least  alarmed  about 
the  fate  of  the  Bill.  The  T^ords  were  no  match  for 
the  forces  arrayed  against  them. — 

"As  for  the  possibility  of  the  House  of  Lords  preventing 

147 


148  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

for  long  a  reform  of  Parliament,  I  hold  it  to  be  the  most 
absurd  notion  that  ever  entered  into  the  human  imagination. 
I  do  not  mean  to  be  disrespectful,  but  the  attempt  of  the 
Lords  to  stop  the  progress  of  Reform  reminds  me  very 
forcibly  of  the  great  storm  at  Sidmouth,  and  of  the  conduct 
of  the  excellent  Mrs.  Partington  on  that  occasion.  In  the 
winter  of  1824,  there  set  in  a  great  flood  upon  that  town  —  the 
tide  rose  to  an  incredible  height  —  the  waves  rushed  in.  upon 
the  houses,  and  everything  was  threatened  with  destruction. 
In  the  midst  of  this  sublime  and  terrible  storm.  Dame  Part- 
ington, who  lived  upon  the  beach,  was  seen  at  the  door  of  her 
house  with  mop  and  pattens,  trundling  her  mop,  squeezing 
out  the  sea-water,  and  vigorously  pushing  away  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  The  Atlantic  was  roused.  Mrs.  Partington's  spirit 
was  up ;  but  I  need  not  tell  you  that  the  contest  was  unequal. 
The  Atlantic  Ocean  beat  Mrs.  Partington.  She  was  excellent 
at  a  slop,  or  a  puddle,  but  she  should  not  have  meddled  with 
a  tempest.  Gentlemen,  be  at  your  ease  —  be  quiet  and  steady. 
You  will  beat  Mrs.  Partington." 

Fifty  years  later,  an  eye-witness  thus  described  the 
scene :  —  "  The  introduction  of  the  Partington  storm 
was  startling  and  unexpected.  As  he  recounted  in 
felicitous  terms  the  adventures  of  the  excellent  dame, 
suiting  the  action  to  the  word  with  great  dramatic 
skill,  he  commenced  trundling  his  imaginary  mop  and 
sweeping  back  the  intrusive  waves  of  the  Atlantic  with 
an  air  of  resolute  determination  and  an  appearance 
of  increasing  temper.  The  scene  was  realistic  in  the 
extreme,  and  was  too  much  for  the  gravity  of  the  most 
serious.  The  house  rose,  the  people  cheered,  and  tears 
of  superabundant  laughter  trickled  down  the  cheeks 
of  fair  women  and  veteran  reformers."^ 

This  was  his  last  public  act  in  connexion  with  Par- 
liamentary Reform ;  but  the  keenness  of  his  interest 

1  R.  A.  Kinglake,  quoted  by  Mr.  Stuart  Reid. 


VI.]  ST.  PAUL'S  149 

remained  unabated  till  the  day  was  won.  On  the 
12tli  of  December  1831,  tlie  Reform  Bill  was  brought  in 
a  third  time.  It  again  passed  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  was  again  threatened  with  destruction  in  the 
Lords.     Sydney  Smith  wrote  thus  to  Lord  Grey  :  — 

"  I  take  it  for  granted  you  are  prepared  to  make  Peers,  to 
force  the  measure  if  it  fail  again,  and  I  would  have  this  in- 
tention half-officially  communicated  in  all  the  great  towns 
before  the  Bill  was  brought  in.  If  this  is  not  done  —  I  mean, 
if  Peers  are  not  made  —  there  will  be  a  general  convulsion, 
ending  in  a  complete  revolution.  ...  If  you  wish  to  be 
happy  three  months  hence,  create  Peers.  If  you  wish  to 
avoid  an  old  age  of  sorrow  and  rej^roach,  ci-eate  Peers." 

Acting  on  this  counsel.  Lord  Grey  obtained  the 
King's  written  consent  to  the  creation  of  as  many  peers 
as  were  required  to  carry  the  Bill.  ''  I  am  for  forty," 
wrote  Sydney,  "to  make  things  safe  in  Committee." 
But  this  extreme  remedy  was  not  required.  When  it 
became  known  that  the  King  had  given  his  consent, 
the  opposition  collapsed,  and  the  Bill  received  the 
Eoyal  Assent  on  the  7th  of  June  1832.  It  was,  as 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  said,  a  revolution  by  due 
course  of  law. 

Henceforward  Sydney  Smith  appears  rather  as  a 
supporter  of  things  as  they  are,  than  as  a  promoter  of 
political  or  ecclesiastical  change.  Indeed  there  are 
signs  which  seem  to  show  that  his  stock  of  reforming 
zeal  had  already  run  low.  "  The  New  Beer  Bill  ^  has 
begun  its  operations.  Everybody  is  drunk.  Those 
who  are  not  singing  are  sprawling.  The  Sovereign 
People  are  in  a  beastly    state."      He  was  now  past 

1  The  Beer-house  Act,  18.'?0,  allowed  any  one  to  retail  beer,  on 
merely  taking  out  an  excise-license. 


150  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

sixty,  and  a  spirit  of  amiable  self-indulgence  was 
creeping  over  him.  — 

"I  love  liberty,  but  hope  it  can  be  so  managed  that  I  shall 
have  soft  beds,  good  dinners,  fine  linen,  etc.,  for  the  rest  of  my 
life.  I  am  too  old  to  fight  or  to  suffer."  "  1  am  tired  of 
liberty  and  revolution !  Where  is  it  to  end  ?  Are  all 
political  agglutinations  to  be  unglued  ?  Are  we  prepared  for 
a  second  Heptarchy,  and  to  see  the  King  of  Sussex  fighting 
with  the  Emperor  of  Essex,  or  marrying  the  Dowager  Queen 
of  Hampshire  ?  " 

Just  before  the  first  elections  under  the  Keform  Act, 
he  wrote  to  a  Scotch  friend  :  — 

"What  oceans  of  absurdity  and  nonsense  will  the  new 
liberties  of  Scotland  disclose  !  Yet  this  is  better  than  the 
old  infamous  jobbing,  and  the  foolocracy  under  which  you 
have  so  long  laboured." 

Sydney  Smith's  first  term  of  official  duty  at  St.  Paul's 
began  on  the  1st  of  February  1832.  On  the  eve  of 
the  new  year    he  wrote  to  his  married  daughter :  — 

"  We  are  debating  how  to  come  up  to  town,  and  how  to 
make  a  Stage  Coach  compatible  with  Saba's  aristocracy  and 
dignity.  The  Coach  sets  off  from  Taunton  at  four  o'clock. 
It  is  then  dark.  I  recommend  her  hurrying  in  three  minutes 
before  the  Coach  departs  with  her  face  covered  up.  But  there 
is  a  maiden  lady  who  knows  us  and  who  lives  opposite  the 
Coach.  I  have  promised  to  keep  her  in  conversation  whilst 
Saba  steps  in.     Once  in,  all  chance  of  detection  is  over. 

"  P.S.  —  We  think  Miss  Y has  discovered  us,  for,  upon 

meeting  her  in  Taunton,  she  spoke  of  the  Excellence  of  Public 
Conveyances.  I  said  it  was  a  fine  day,  and,  conscious  of  guilt, 
retired." 

The  removal  to  London  was  safely  accomplished, 
and  on  the  29th  of  January  he  wrote  :  — 

"  I  drove  all  this  morning  with  Lady  Holland.  I  had 
refused  two  or  three  times  last  week,  but,  as  a  good  deal  is 


VI.]  ST.  PAUL'S  151 

due  to  old  friendship,  I  wrote  word  that,  if  she  would  accept 
the  company  of  a  handsome  young  clergyman,  I  knew  of  one 
who  was  much  at  her  service.  She  was  very  ill.  I  preached  to 
her,  not  '  of  Temperance  and  Righteousness  and  Judgement 
to  come,'  but  said  nothing  of  the  two  last  and  confined  myself 
to  the  first  topic.  '  Lay  aside  pepper,  and  brandy  and  water, 
and  baume  de  vie.  Prevent  the  evil  instead  of  curing  it.  A 
single  mutton  chop,  a  glass  of  toast  and  water'  —  here  she 
cried  and  I  stopped ;  but  she  began  sobbing,  and  I  was 
weak  enough  to  allow  two  glasses  of  sherry  —  on  which  she 
recovered." 

A  few  days  later  he  wrote  to  his  old  friend  Lady 

Morley  ^ :  — 

"  I  have  taken  possession  of  my  preferment.  The  house  is 
in  Amen  Corner,  —  an  awkward  name  on  a  card,  and  an 
awkward  annunciation  to  the  coachman  on  leaving  any 
fashionable  mansion.^  I  find  too  (sweet  discovery !)  that  I 
give  a  dinner  every  Sunday,  for  three  months  in  the  year,  to 
six  clergymen  and  six  singing-men,  at  one  o'clock.  Do  me 
the  favour  to  drop  in  as  Mrs.  Morley." 

It  soon  became  evident  that  the  Whig  Government, 
flushed  with  its  triumph  over  Toryism,  intended  to 
lay  reforming  hands  upon  the  Church,^  and  the  newly- 
fledged  dignitary  was  alarmed.  On  the  22nd  of 
December  1832  he  wrote  — 

"  I  see  Lord  Grey,  the  Chancellor,  and  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  have  had  a  meeting,  which  I  suppose  has  decided 
the  fate  of  the  Church."  "  Do  you  want  a  butler  or  respect- 
able-looking groom  of  the  chambers?     I  shall  be  happy  to 

1  Frances  Talbot,  wife  of  John,  1st  Earl  of  Morley. 

2  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  lived  at  33  Charles  Street,  and  subse- 
quently at  56  Greeu  Street. 

3  This  intention  gave  rise  to  the  "  Oxford  Movement."  Keble 
thought  that  the  time  had  come  when  "  scoundrels  must  be  called 
scoundrels."  His  Sermon  on  "  National  Apostasy  "  was  preached 
on  the  14th  of  July  1833. 


152  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

serve  you  in  either  capacity ;  it  is  time  for  the  clergy  to  look 
out.  I  have  also  a  cassock  and  stock  of  sermons  to  dispose 
of,  dry  and  fit  for  use."  "  I  am  for  no  more  movements : 
they  are  not  relished  by  Canons  of  St.  Paul's.  When  I  say, 
'no  more  movements,'  however,  I  except  the  case  of  the 
Universities ;  which,  I  think,  ought  to  be  immediately  invaded 
with  Enquirers  and  Commissioners.  They  are  a  crying  evil." 
"  Do  not  imagine  I  am  going  to  rat.  I  am  a  thoroughly 
honest,  and,  I  will  say,  liberal  person,  but  have  never  given 
way  to  that  puritanical  feeling  of  the  Whigs  against  dining 
with  Tories. 

'  Tory  and  Whig  in  turns  shall  be  ray  host, 
I  taste  no  politics  in  boil'd  and  roast.'  " 

In  declining  an  invitation  to  dinner  he  wrote :  — 

"  On  one  day  of  the  year,  the  Canons  of  St.  Paul's  divide 
a  little  money  —  an  inadequate  recompense  for  all  the  troubles 
and  anxieties  they  undergo.  This  day  is,  unfortunately  for 
me,  that  on  which  you  have  asked  me  (the  25th  of  March), 
when  we  all  dine  together,  endeavouring  to  forget  for  a  few 
moments,  by  the  aid  of  meat  and  wine,  the  sorrows  and 
persecutions  of  the  Church." 

Of  Sydney  Smith's  official  relations  with  St.  Panl's 
abnndant  traces  are  still  to  be  found.  He  took  a 
leading  part  in  the  business  of  the  Chapter.  Dean 
Milman^  wrote:  —  "I  find  traces  of  him  in  every 
particular  of  Chapter  affairs ;  and,  on  every  occasion 
where  his  hand  appears,  I  find  stronger  reasons  for 
respecting  his  sound  judgment,  knowledge  of  business, 
and  activity  of  mind ;  above  all  the  perfect  fidelity  of 
his  stewardship.  .  .  .  His  management  of  the  affairs 
of  St.  Paul's  (for  at  one  time  he  seems  to  have  been 
the  manager)  only  commenced  too  late  and  terminated 
too  soon." 

A  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  was 

1  Henry  Hart  Milman  (1791-1868). 


VI.]  ST.    PAUL'S  153 

appointed  in  1841  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of 
National  Monuments.  One  fragment  of  Sydney 
Smith's  evidence  is  quaint  enough  to  be  recalled.  — 

"  I  hope  I  leave  the  Committee  with  this  very  decided 
impression,  that,  in  such  an  immense  town  as  this,  free 
admission  into  the  Cathedral  would  very  soon  inflict  upon  that 
Cathedral  the  infamy  of  being  a  notorious  resort  for  all  bad 
characters;  it  would  cease  to  be  frequented  as  a  place  of 
worship,  and  the  whole  purpose  for  which  it  exists  destroyed  ; 
and  that  to  this  the  payment  operates  as  a  decided  check." 

When  examined  before  the  same  Committee,  the 
Surveyor  to  the  Cathedral  testified  that  there  "  had 
been  no  superintendence  at  all  comparable  to  that  of 
Mr.  Sydney  Smith  "  ;  that  he  had  warmed  the  Library 
and  rebound  the  books  ;  that  he  had  insured  the  fabric 
against  fire ;  and  had  "  brought  the  New  River  into 
the  Cathedral  by  mains."  The  Verger  testified  that 
the  monuments  had  fallen  into  a  dreadful  state  of 
decay  and  disfigurement,  and  that  there  were  ''  twenty 
thousand  names  scratched  on  the  font "  ;  but  that  now 
by  Mr.  Smith's  orders  everything  had  been  repaired, 
cleaned,  and  set  in  order. 

As  regards  Sydney  Smith's  preaching,  testimony 
is  equally  explicit.  He  said  of  himself,  in  a  letter 
stating  his  claims  to  ecclesiastical  preferment,  "  I  am 
distinguished  as  a  preacher,"  and  this  seems  to  have 
been  no  more  than  the  truth.  George  Ticknor,  writing 
in  1835,  said  that  he  had  heard  from  Sydney  "by 
far  the  best  sermon  that  I  have  heard  in  England." 
Charles  Greville  wrote  :  —  "  He  is  very  good ;  manner 
impressive,  voice  sonorous  and  agreeable ;  rather 
familiar,  but  not  offensively  so."     Mrs.  Austin,^  who 

1  Born  Sarah  Taylor  (1793-1867). 


154  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

afterwards  edited  his  Letters,  writes :  —  "  The  choir  ^ 
was  densely  filled.  .  .  .  The  moment  he  appeared  in 
the  pulpit,  all  the  weight  of  his  duty,  all  the  authority 
of  his  office,  were  written  on  his  countenance ;  and, 
without  a  particle  of  affectation,  his  whole  demeanour 
bespoke  the  gravity  of  his  purpose." 

This  exactly  corresponds  with  the  impression  of  a 
listener  to  his  famous  sermon  on  Toleration,  in  Bristol 
Cathedral.  "Never  did  anybody  to  my  mind  look 
more  like  a  High  Churchman,  as  he  walked  up  the 
aisle  to  the  altar  —  there  was  an  air  of  so  much  proud 
dignity  in  his  appearance." 

Perhaps  this  account  of  Sydney  Smith's  relations 
with  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  cannot  be  better  concluded 
than  with  some  extracts  from  the  noble  sermon  which 
he  preached  there  on  the  occasion  of  Queen  Victoria's 
accession.  It  is  a  remarkably  fine  instance  of  his 
rhetorical  manner.  It  reveals  an  ardent  and  sagacious 
patriotism.  It  breathes  a  spirit  of  fatherly  interest 
which  excellently  becomes  a  minister  of  religion, 
glancing,  from  the  close  of  a  long  life  spent  in  public 
affairs,  at  the  possibilities,  at  once  awful  and  splendid, 
which  lay  before  the  Girl-Queen. 

The  preacher,  in  his  opening  paragraphs,  briefly 
announces  his  theme.  His  starting-point  is  the  death 
of  the  King.  — 

"  From  the  throne  to  the  tomb  —  wealth,  splendour,  flattery, 
all  gone  1  The  look  of  favour  —  the  voice  of  power,  no  more ; 
—  the  deserted  palace  —  the  wretched  monarch  on  his  funeral 
bier  —  the  mourners  ready  —  the  dismal  march  of  death  pre- 
pared.   Who  are  we,  and  what  are  we  ?  and  for  what  has  God 

1  At  that  period  there  were  no  sermons  under  the  Dome. 


VI.]  ST.  PAUL'S  lo6 

made  us?  and  why  are  we  doomed  to  this  frail  and  unquiet 
existence  ?  Who  does  not  feel  all  this  ?  in  whose  heart  does  it 
not  provoke  appeal  to,  and  dependence  on,  God  ?  before  whose 
eyes  does  it  not  bring  the  folly  and  the  nothingness  of  all 
things  human  ?  " 

He  pauses  to  pay  a  tribute  to  the  honesty  and 
patriotism  of  William  iv.,  and  then  proceeds :  — 

"  But  the  world  passes  on,  and  a  new  order  of  things  arises. 
Let  us  take  a  short  view  of  those  duties  which  devolve  upon 
the  young  Queen,  whom  Providence  has  placed  over  us  :  what 
ideas  she  ought  to  form  of  her  duties;  and  on  what  points 
she  should  endeavour  to  place  the  glories  of  her  reign. 

"  First  and  foremost,  I  think  the  new  Queen  should  bend 
her  mind  to  the  very  serious  consideration  of  educating  her 
people.  Of  the  importance  of  this  I  think  no  reasonable 
doubt  can  exist ;  it  does  not  in  its  effects  keep  pace  with  the 
exaggerated  expectations  of  its  injudicious  advocates  ;  but  it 
presents  the  best  chance  of  national  imiDrovement. 

"  Reading  and  writing  are  mere  increase  of  power.  They 
may  be  turned,  I  admit,  to  a  good  or  a  bad  purpose;  but  for 
several  years  of  liis  life  the  child  is  in  your  hands,  and  you  may 
give  to  that  power  what  bias  you  please.    Thou  shalt  not  kill 

—  Thou  shalt  not  steal  —  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  : 

—  by  how  many  fables,  by  how  much  poetry,  by  how  many 
beautiful  aids  of  imagination,  may  not  the  fine  morality  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures  be  engraven  on  the  nunds  of  the  young  ?  I 
believe  the  arm  of  the  assassin  may  be  often  stayed  by  the 
lessons  of  his  early  life.  When  I  see  the  village  school,  and 
the  tattered  scholars,  and  the  aged  master  or  mistress  teaching 
the  mechanical  art  of  reading  or  writing,  and  thinking  that 
they  are  teaching  that  alone,  I  feel  that  the  aged  instructor  is 
protecting  life,  insuring  property,  fencing  the  altar,  guarding 
the  throne,  giving  space  and  liberty  to  all  the  fine  powers  of 
man,  and  lifting  him  up  to  his  own  place  in  the  order  of 
Creation. 

"  There  are,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  many  countries  in  Europe 
which  have  taken  the  lead  of  England  in  the  great  business 


156  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

of  education,  and  it  is  a  thoroughly  commendable  and  legiti- 
mate object  of  ambition  in  a  Sovereign  to  overtake  them. 
The  names,  too,  of  malefactors,  and  the  nature  of  their  crimes, 
are  subjected  to  the  Sovereign  ;  —  how  is  it  possible  that  a 
Sovereign,  with  the  fine  feelings  of  youth,  and  with  all  the 
gentleness  of  her  sex,  should  not  ask  herself,  whether  the 
human  being  whom  she  dooms  to  death,  or  at  least  does  not 
rescue  from  death,  has  been  properly  warned  in  early  youth  of 
the  horrors  of  that  crime,  for  which  his  life  is  forfeited — '  Did 
he  ever  receive  any  education  at  all?  —  did  a  father  and  a 
mother  watch  over  him? — was  he  brought  to  places  of  wor- 
ship?—  was  the  Word  of  God  explained  to  him  ? —  was  the 
Book  of  Knowledge  opened  to  him?  —  Or  am  I,  the  fountain 
of  mercy,  the  nursing-mother  of  my  people,  to  send  a  forsaken 
wretch  from  the  streets  to  the  scaffold,  and  to  punish  by 
unprincipled  cruelty  the  evils  of  unprincipled  neglect  ? '  " 

From  zeal  for  education,  we  go  on  to  love  of 
Peace.  — 

"  A  second  great  object,  which  I  hope  will  be  impressed 
upon  the  mind  of  this  Royal  Lady,  is  a  rooted  horror  of  war 
—  an  earnest  and  passionate  desire  to  keep  her  people  in  a 
state  of  profound  peace.  The  greatest  curse  which  can  be 
entailed  upon  mankind  is  a  state  of  war.  All  the  atrocious 
crimes  committed  in  years  of  peace — all  that  is  spent  in  peace 
by  the  secret  corruptions,  or  by  the  thoughtless  extravagance, 
of  nations  —  are  mere  trifles  compared  with  the  gigantic  evils 
which  stalk  over  the  world  in  a  state  of  war.  God  is  forgotten 
in  war  — every  principle  of  Christian  charity  trampled  upon  — 
human  labour  destroyed — human  industry  extinguished — you 
see  the  son,  and  the  husband,  and  the  brother,  dying  miserably 
in  distant  lands — you  see  the  waste  of  human  affections — you 
see  the  breaking  of  human  hearts — you  hear  the  shrieks  of 
■widows  and  children  after  the  battle  —  and  you  walk  over  the 
mangled  bodies  of  the  wounded  calling  for  death.  I  would 
say  to  that  Royal  child,  Worship  God  by  loving  peace  —  it  is 
not  your  humanity  to  pity  a  beggar  by  giving  him  food  or 
raiment  —  7  can  do  that ;  that  isthe  charity  of  the  humble  and 


VI.]  ST.   PAUL'S  157 

the  unknown  —  widen  you  j'our  heart  for  the  more  expanded 
miseries  of  mankind  —  pity  the  mothers  of  the  peasantry  who 
see  their  sons  torn  away  from  their  families  —  pity  your  poor 
subjects  crowded  into  hospitals,  and  calling  in  their  last  breath 
upon  their  distant  country  and  their  young  Queen  —  pity  the 
stupid,  frantic  folly  of  human  beings  who  are  always  ready  to 
tear  each  other  to  pieces,  and  to  deluge  the  earth  with  each 
other's  blood ;  this  is  your  extended  humanity  —  and  this  the 
great  field  of  your  compassion.  Extinguish  in  your  heart  the 
fiendish  love  of  military  glory,  from  which  your  sex  does 
not  necessarily  exempt  you,  and  to  which  the  wickedness  of 
flatterers  may  urge  you.  Say  upon  your  death-bed,  '  I  have 
made  few  orphans  in  my  reign  —  I  have  made  few  widows  — 
my  object  has  been  peace.  I  have  used  all  the  weight  of  my 
character,  and  all  the  power  of  my  situation,  to  check  the 
irascible  passions  of  mankind,  and  to  turn  them  to  the  arts  of 
honest  industry.  This  has  been  the  Christianity  of  my  throne, 
and  this  the  Gospel  of  my  sceptre.  In  this  way  I  have  strove 
to  worship  my  Redeemer  and  my  Judge.'  " 

True  to  his  lifelong  conviction,  the  preacher  urges 
the  sacredness  of  religious  freedom.  — 

"  I  hope  the  Queen  will  love  the  National  Church,  and  pro- 
tect it ;  but  it  must  be  impressed  upon  her  mind  that  every 
sect  of  Christians  have  as  perfect  a  right  to  the  free  exercise 
of  their  worship  as  the  Church  itself  —  that  there  must  be 
no  invasion  of  the  privileges  of  the  other  sects,  and  no  con- 
temptuous disrespect  of  their  feelings  —  that  the  Altar  is  the 
very  ark  and  citadel  of  Freedom. 

"Though  I  deprecate  the  bad  effects  of  fanaticism,  I 
earnestly  pray  that  our  young  Sovereign  may  evince  herself 
to  be  a  person  of  deep  religious  feeling :  what  other  cm-e  has 
she  for  all  the  arrogance  and  vanity  which  her  exalted  position 
must  engender?  for  all  the  flattery  and  falsehood  with  which 
she  must  be  surrounded  ?  for  all  the  soul-corrupting  homage 
with  which  she  is  met  at  every  moment  of  her  existence  ? 
what  other  cure  than  to  cast  herself  down  in  darkness  and 


158  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

solitude  before  God  —  to  say  that  she  is  dust  and  ashes  —  and 
to  call  down  the  pity  of  the  Almighty  upon  her  difficult 
and  dangerous  life.  This  is  the  antidote  of  kings  against  the 
slavery  and  the  baseness  which  surround  them ;  they  should 
think  often  of  death  —  and  the  folly  and  nothingness  of  the 
world,  and  they  should  humble  their  souls  before  the  Master 
of  masters,  and  the  King  of  kings;  praying  to  Heaven  for 
wisdom  and  calm  reflexion,  and  for  that  spirit  of  Christian 
gentleness  which  exalts  command  into  an  empire  of  justice, 
and  turns  obedience  into  a  service  of  love." 

Thus  he  recapitulates  and  concludes  :  — 

"  A  young  Queen,  at  that  period  of  life  which  is  commonly 
given  up  to  frivolous  amusement,  sees  at  once  the  great 
principles  by  which  she  should  be  guided,  and  steps  at  once 
into  the  great  duties  of  her  station.  The  imj^ortance  of 
educating  the  lower  orders  of  the  peoj^le  is  never  absent  from 
her  mind  ;  she  takes  up  this  principle  at  the  beginning  of  her 
life,  and  in  all  the  change  of  servants,  and  in  all  the  struggle 
of  parties,  looks  to  it  as  a  source  of  permanent  improvement. 
A  great  object  of  her  affections  is  the  preservation  of  peace ; 
she  regards  a  state  of  war  as  the  greatest  of  all  human  evils ; 
thinks  that  the  lust  of  conquest  is  not  a  glory,  but  a  bad 
crime ;  despises  the  folly  and  miscalculations  of  war,  and  is 
willing  to  sacrifice  every  thing  to  peace  but  the  clear  honour 
of  her  land. 

"  The  patriot  Queen,  whom  I  am  painting,  reverences  the 
National  Church  —  frequents  its  worship,  and  regulates  her 
faith  by  its  precepts ;  but  she  withstands  the  encroachments, 
and  keeps  down  the  ambition  natural  to  establishments,  and, 
by  rendering  the  privileges  of  tlie  Church  compatible  with  the 
civil  freedom  of  all  sects,  confers  strength  upon,  and  adds 
duration  to,  that  wise  and  magnificent  institution.  And  then 
this  youthful  Monarch,  profoundly  but  wisely  religious,  dis- 
daining hypocrisy,  and  far  above  the  childish  follies  of  false 
piety,  casts  herself  upon  God,  and  seeks  from  the  Gospel  of 
His  blessed  Son  a  path  for  her  steps,  and  a  comfort  for  her 
soul.   Here  is  a  picture  which  warms  every  English  heart,  and 


VI.]  THE  PARALLELOGRAM  169 

would  bring  all  this  congregation  upon  their  bended  knees 
before  Almighty  God  to  pray  it  may  be  realized.  What  limits 
to  tlie  glory  and  happiness  of  our  native  land,  if  the  Creator 
should  in  Ilis  mercy  have  placed  in  the  heart  of  this  Royal 
Woman  the  rudiments  of  wisdom  and  mercy  ;  and  if,  giving 
them  time  to  expand,  and  to  bless  our  children's  children  with 
her  goodness,  He  should  grant  to  her  a  long  sojourning  upon 
earth,  and  leave  her  to  reign  over  us  till  she  is  well  stricken 
in  years?  What  glory!  what  happiness!  what  joy!  what 
bounty  of  God !  I  of  course  can  only  expect  to  see  the  be- 
ginning of  such  a  splendid  period :  but,  when  I  do  see  it, 
I  shall  exclaim  with  the  pious  Simeon,  '  Lord,  now  lettest 
Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen 
Thy  salvation.'  " 

We  turn  now  from  ecclesiastical  to  social  life. 
Though  Sydney  Smith  still  retained  his  beautiful 
Rectory  of  Combe  Florey,  and  lived  there  a  good 
deal  in  the  summer,  he  spent  more  and  more  of  his 
year  in  London.  He  held  that  the  parallelogram 
between  Oxford  Street,  Piccadilly,  Regent  Street, 
and  Hyde  Park,  "  enclosed  more  intelligence  and 
ability,  to  say  nothing  of  wealth  and  beauty,  than 
the  world  had  ever  collected  in  such  a  space  before." 
He  frankly  admitted  that  the  summer  and  the  country 
had  no  charms  for  him.  His  sentiments  on  this  head 
found  poetical  expression  in  a  parody  of  Paradise  Lost. 
He  felt 

"  As  one  who,  long  in  rural  hamlets  pent, 
(Where  squires  and  parsons  deep  potations  make, 
With  lengthen'd  tale  of  fox,  or  timid  hare, 
Or  antler'd  stag,  sore  vext  by  hound  and  horn), 
Forth  issuing  on  a  winter's  morn,  to  reach 
In  chaise  or  coach  the  Loudon  Babylon 
Remote,  from  each  thing  met  conceives  delight ;  — 
Or  cab,  or  car,  or  evening  mufBn-bell, 
Or  lamps  —  each  city-sight,  each  city -sound." 


160  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

"I  do  all  I  can  to  love  the  country,  and  endeavour  to 
believe  those  poetical  lies  which  I  read  in  Rogers  and  others, 
on  the  subject ;  which  said  deviations  from  truth  were,  by 
Rogers,  all  written  in  St.  James's  Place."  "  I  look  forward 
anxiously  to  the  return  of  the  bad  weather,  coal  fires,  and  good 
society  in  a  crowded  city."  "  The  country  is  bad  enough 
in  summer,  but  in  winter  it  is  a  fit  residence  only  for  beings 
doomed  to  such  misery  for  misdeeds  in  another  state  of  exist- 
ence." "  You  may  depend  upon  it,  all  lives  lived  out  of  Lon- 
don are  mistakes,  more  or  less  grievous  —  but  mistakes." 
"  I  shall  not  be  sorry  to  be  in  town.  I  am  rather  tired  of 
simple  pleasures,  bad  reasoning,  and  worse  cookery." 

His  life  in  London,  free  from  these  kindred  evils, 
was  full  of  eDJoyment.  He  dined  out  as  often  as 
he  liked,  and  entertained  his  friends  at  breakfast, 
luncheon,  and  dinner.  He  admits  that  he  "some- 
times talked  a  little,"  and  "  liked  a  hearty  laugher." 

"  I  talk  only  the  nonsense  of  the  moment  from  the  good 
humour  of  the  moment,  and  nothing  remains  behind." 

"  I  like  a  little  noise  and  natiu-e,  and  a  large  party,  very 
merry  and  happy." 

Here  are  some  of  his  invitations  :  — 

"  Will  you  come  to  a  philosophical  breakfast  on  Saturday? 
—  ten  o'clock  precisely  ?  Nothing  taken  for  granted !  Every- 
thing (except  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles)  called  in  question." 

"  I  have  a  breakfast  of  philosophers  to-morrow  at  ten 
punctually;  muffins  and  metaphysics,  crumpets  and  con- 
tradiction.    Will  you  come?" 

"  Pray  come  and  see  me.  I  will  give  you  very  good  mut- 
ton chops  for  luncheon,^  seasoned  with  affectionate  regard 
and  respect." 

1  In  1825,  after  a  visit  to  Lord  Essex  at  Cassiobury,  he  noted 
with  disapproval  —  "  No  hot  luncheons." 


VI.]  THE  PARALLELOGRAM  161 

"  I  give  two  dinners  next  week  to  the  following  persons, 
whom  I  enumerate,  as  I  know  Lady  Georgiana  loves  a  little 
gossip.  First  dinner  —  Lady  Holland,  Eastlake,  Lord  and 
Lady  Monteagle,  Luttrell,  Lord  Auckland,  Lord  Campbell, 
Lady  Stx-atheden,  Lady  Dunstanville,  Baring  Wall,  and 
Mr.  Hope.  Second  dinner  —  Lady  Charlemont,  Lord  Glenelg, 
Lord  and  Lady  Denmau,  Lord  and  Lady  Cottenliam,  Lord  and 
Lady  Langdale,  Sir  Charles  Lemon,  Mr.  Hibbert,  Landseer, 
and  Lord  Clarendon." 

This  period  is  marked  by  one  domestic  incident 
which  caused  the  Smiths  lasting  happiness.  In  the 
spring  of  1834  their  elder  daughter,  Saba,  was  married 
to  Dr.,  afterwards  Sir  Henry,  Holland.  Sydney  thus 
expressed  his  joy :  — 

"  The  blessing  of  God  be  upon  you  both,  dear  children ; 
and  be  assured  that  it  makes  my  old  age  much  hap^aier  to 
have  placed  my  daughter  in  the  hands  of  so  honourable  and 
amiable  a  son." 

A  few  years  later  he  wrote  from  Combe  Florey :  — 

"  We  expect  Saba  and  Dr.  Holland  the  end  of  this  month. 
I  am  in  great  hopes  we  shall  have  some  '  cases  ' :  I  am  keep- 
ing three  or  four  simmering  for  him.  It  is  enough  to  break 
one's  heart  to  see  him  in  the  country." 

In  November  1834,  the  King  dismissed  the  Whig 
Government,  and  sent  for  Sir  Kobert  Peel.  A  General 
Election  took  place  at  Christmas.  In  the  spring  of 
1835  Peel's  Government  was  displaced  by  a  vote  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  a  Whig  Government 
was  formed  again  under  Lord  Melbourne.  Henry 
Labouchere,^  M.P.  for  Taunton,  accepted  office,  and 
thereby  vacated  his  seat.  On  seeking  re-election,  he 
was   opposed,  unsuccessfully,  by  Benjamin   Disraeli. 

1  (1798-1869),  created  Lord  Taunton  in  1859. 


162  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

"The  Jew  sj^oke  for  an  hour.  The  boys  called  out 
'  Old  Clothes '  as  he  came  into  the  town,  and  offered 
to  sell  him  sealing-wax  and  slippers."  ^ 

As  soon  as  the  Election  was  over,  the  country  relapsed 
into  its  normal  calm.  On  the  3rd  of  June  Sydney 
wrote :  — 

"  We  are  going  through  our  usual  course  of  jokes  and 
dinners.  One  advantage  of  the  country  is  that  a  joke  once 
established  is  good  for  ever;  it  is  like  the  stuff  which  is 
denominated  everlasting,  and  used  as  pantaloons  by  careful 
parents  for  their  children." 

In  the  following  autumn  the  Smiths  paid  a  flying 
visit  to  France.  The  crossing  from  Dover  was  terrific ; 
but  Sydney  comforted  himself  with  the  reflexion  that, 
"as  I  had  so  little  life  to  lose,  it  was  of  little  conse- 
quence whether  I  was  drowned,  or  died,  like  a  resident 
clergyman,  from  indigestion." 

France  gave  him  the  same  pleasure  as  it  had  always 
given  him.  — 

"  Paris  is  very  full.  I  look  at  it  with  some  attention,  as 
I  am  not  sure  I  may  not  end  my  days  in  it.  I  suspect  the 
fifth  act  of  life  should  be  in  great  cities :  it  is  there,  in  the 
long  death  of  old  age,  that  a  man  most  forgets  himself  and 
his  infirmities." 

"  I  care  very  little  about  dinners,  but  I  shall  not  easily 
forget  a  matelote  at  the  Rochers  de  Cancale,  an  almond  tart 
at  Montreuil,  or  apoulet  a  la  Tartare  at  Grignon's.  These  are 
impressions  which  no  changes  in  future  life  can  obliterate." 

Before  the  year  ended,  he  was  established  in  Lon- 
don. The  remaining  ten  years  of  his  life  saw  him, 
in  spite  of  some  bodily  infirmities,  at  the  summit  of 

1  This  is  interesting  as  being,  so  far  as  I  know,  Sydney  Smith's 
only  reference  to  Lord  Beaconsfield. 


VI.]  ARCHDEACON  SINGLETON  163 

his  social  fame.  An  immense  proportion  of  the  anec- 
dotes relating  to  his  conversation  belong  to  this 
period.  "  It  was,"  wrote  Mr.  Gladstone  in  1879,  "  in 
the  year  1835  that  I  met  Mr.  Sydney  Smith  for  the 
first  time  at  the  table  of  Mr.  Hallam.  After  dinner 
Mr.  Smith  was  good  enough  to  converse  with  me,  and 
he  spoke,  not  of  any  general  changes  in  the  prevailing 
tone  of  doctrine,  but  of  the  improvement  which  had 
then  begun  to  be  remarkable  in  the  conduct  and 
character  of  the  clergy.  He  went  back  upon  what 
they  had  been,  and  said,  in  his  vivid  and  pointed 
way  of  illustration,  'Whenever  you  meet  a  clergy- 
man of  my  age,  you  may  be  quite  sure  he  is  a  bad 
clergyman.' "  ^ 

In  1836  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  was  established 
by  Act  of  Parliament  as  a  permanent  institution  for 
the  management  of  business  relating  to  the  Church. 
Its  constitution  and  recommendations  were  very  dis- 
tasteful to  Sydney  Smith ;  and,  as  time  went  on,  he 
found  it  impossible  to  restrain  himself  from  public 
criticism.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Session  of  1837,  he 
published  his  "  First  Letter  to  Archdeacon  Singleton."  ^ 
The  Letter  begins  with  an  attack  on  the  constitution  of 
the  Commission.  It  was  stuffed  with  Bishops.  Deans 
and  Canons  and  Rectors  and  Vicars  and  Curates  had 
no  place  upon  it.  The  result  was  that  all  interests, 
not  episcopal,  had  been  completely  overlooked,  and 
that  the  reforms,  though  perhaps  theoretically  sound, 
were  practically  unworkable.  Further,  the  reforms 
had  been  far  too  extensive.     The  plan  of  making  a 

1  Gladstone's  Gleanings,  vol.  vii.  p.  220. 

2  Thomas  Singleton  (1783-1842),  Canon  of  Worcester  and 
Archdeacon  of  Northumberland. 


164  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

Central  Fund  from  the  proceeds  of  confiscated  Pre- 
bends,^ and  enriching  the  smaller  livings  with  it,  was 
chimerical.  The  whole  income  of  the  Church,  equally 
divided  among  all  its  clergy,  would  only  give  each 
man  the  wages  of  a  nobleman's  butler.  The  true 
method  in  all  professions  was  the  method  of  Blanks 
and  Prizes.  But  for  the  chance  of  those  Prizes,  men 
of  good  birth  and  education  would  not  "  go  into  the 
Church  " ;  and  an  uneducated  clergy  would  inevitably 
become  fanatical.  — 

"  You  will  have  a  set  of  ranting,  raving  Pastors,  who  will 
wage  war  against  all  the  innocent  pleasures  of  life ;  vie  with 
each  other  in  extravagance  of  zeal ;  and  plague  your  heart 
out  with  their  nonsense  and  absurdity.  Cribbage  must  be 
played  in  caverns,  and  sixpenny  whist  take  refuge  in  the 
howling  wilderness.  In  this  way  low  men,  doomed  to  hope- 
less poverty  and  galled  by  contempt,  will  endeavour  to  force 
themselves  into  station  and  significance." 


■"&' 


Then  again  there  was  the  difficulty  of  oaths.  The 
property  of  Cathedrals  could  only  be  confiscated  at  the 
expense  of  violated  vows.  — 

"  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  at  his  enthronement, 
takes  a  solemn  oath  that  he  will  maintain  the  rights  and  liber- 
ties of  the  Church  of  Canterbury;  as  Chairman,  however,  of 
the  New  Commission,  he  seizes  the  patronage  of  that  Church, 
takes  two  thirds  of  its  Revenues,  and  abolishes  two  thirds  of 
its  Members.  That  there  is  an  answer  to  this  I  am  vei-y 
willing  to  believe,  but  I  cannot  at  present  find  out  what  it  is; 
and  this  attack  upon  the  Revenues  and  Members  of  Canter- 
bury is  not  obedience  to  an  Act  of  Parliament,  but  the  very 
Act  of  Parliament,  which  takes  away,  is  recommended,  drawn 
up,  and  signed  by  the  person  who  has  sworn  he  will  never 

1  It  is  sometimes  forgotten  that  a  Prebend  is  a  thing ;  a  Pre- 
bendary a  person. 


VI.]  ARCHDEACON  SINGLETON  165 

take  away;  and  this  little  apparent  inconsistency  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  but  is  shared  equally 
by  all  the  Bishop-Coniniissioiiers,  who  have  all  (unless  I  am 
grievously  mistaken)  taken  similar  oaths  for  the  preservation 
of  their  respective  Chapters.  It  would  be  more  easy  to  see 
our  way  out  of  this  little  embarrassment,  if  some  of  the  em- 
barrassed had  not  unfortunately,  in  the  parliamentary  debates 
on  the  Catholic  Question,  laid  the  greatest  stress  upon  the 
King's  oath,  applauded  the  sanctity  of  the  monarch  to  the 
skies,  rejected  all  comments,  called  for  the  oath  in  its  plain 
meaning,  and  attributed  the  safety  of  the  English  Church 
to  the  solemn  vow  made  by  the  King  at  the  altar  to  the 
Archbishops  of  Canterbury  and  York. 

•  ••«.•• 

"  Nothing  can  be  more  ill-natured  among  politicians,  than 
to  look  back  into  Hansard's  Debates,  to  see  what  has  been 
said  by  particular  men  upon  particular  occasions,  and  to  con- 
trast such  speeches  with  present  opinions  —  and  therefore  I 
forbear  to  introduce  some  inviting  passages  upon  taking  oaths 
in  their  plain  and  obvious  sense,  both  in  debates  on  the  Catho- 
lic Question  and  upon  that  fatal  and  Mezentian  oath  which 
binds  the  Irish  to  the  English  church." 

The  gist  of  all  these  reforms,  actual  and  projected, 
was  that  the  Bishops  were  enormously  increasing 
their  ovm  power  and  patronage  at  the  expense  of  the 
Deans  and  Chapters.  Sydney  Smith,  as  a  member  of 
a  Chapter,  protested,  and  then  the  friends  of  the 
Bishops  cried  out  that  all  such  protests  were  indecent, 
and  even  perilous.  — 

"  We  are  told  that  if  we  agitate  these  questions  among  our- 
selves, we  shall  have  the  democratic  Philistines  come  down 
upon  us,  and  sweep  us  all  away  together.  Be  it  so :  I  am 
quite  ready  to  be  swept  away  when  the  time  conies.  Every- 
body has  his  favourite  death  :  some  delight  in  apoplexy,  and 
others  prefer  marasmus.  ...  I  would  infinitely  rather  be 
crushed  by  democrats  than,  under  the  plea  of  the  public 
good,  be  mildly  and  blandly  absorbed  by  Bishops." 


166  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

With  Bishops  as  a  body,  and  allowing  for  some 
notable  exceptions,  Sydney  Smith  seems  to  have  had 
only  an  imperfect  sympathy.  He  held  that  they 
could  not  be  trusted  to  deal  fairly  and  reasonably 
with  men,  subject  to  their  jurisdiction,  who  dared  to 
maintain  independence  in  thought  and  action.  — 

"  A  good  and  honest  Bishop  (I  thank  God  there  are  many 
who  deserve  that  character  !)  ought  to  suspect  himself,  and 
carefully  to  watch  his  own  heart.  He  is  all  of  a  sudden 
elevated  from  being  a  tutor,  dining  at  an  early  hour  with  his 
pupil  (and  occasionally,  it  is  believed,  on  cold  meat),  to  be  a 
spiritual  Lord ;  he  is  dressed  in  a  magnificent  dress,  decorated 
with  a  title,  flattered  by  Chaplains,  and  surrounded  by  little 
people  looking  up  for  the  things  which  he  has  to  give  away; 
and  this  often  happens  to  a  man  who  has  had  no  opportuni- 
ties of  seeing  the  world,  whose  parents  were  in  very  humble  life, 
and  who  has  given  up  all  his  thoughts  to  the  Frogs  of  Aris- 
tophanes and  the  Targum  of  Onkelos.  How  is  it  possible  that 
such  a  man  should  not  lose  his  head?  that  he  should  not  swell? 
that  he  should  not  be  guilty  of  a  thousand  follies,  and  worry 
and  tease  to  death  (before  he  recovers  his  common  sense)  a 
hundred  men  as  good,  and  as  wise,  and  as  able  as  himself  ?  " 

On  all  accounts,  therefore,  both  public  and  private, 
it  was  very  good  for  Bishops  to  hear  the  voice  of 
candid  criticism,  and  their  opportunities  of  enjoying 
that  advantage  were  all  too  rare.  — 

"  Bishops  live  in  high  places  with  high  people,  or  with  little 
people  who  depend  upon  them.  They  walk  delicately,  like 
Agag.  They  hear  only  one  sort  of  conversation,  and  avoid 
bold  reckless  men,  as  a  lady  veils  herself  from  rough  breezes." 

And  for  the  Whig  Government,  which  was  con- 
senting to  all  these  attacks  on  the  Church  and  the 
Chapters,  Sydney  had  his  parting  word  of  reminiscent 
rebuke.  — 


VI.]  ARCHDEACON  SINGLETON  167 

"  I  neither  wish  to  offend  them  nor  any  body  else.  I  consider 
myself  to  be  as  good  a  Whig  as  any  amongst  them.  I  was  a 
Whig  before  many  of  them  were  born  —  and  while  some  of 
them  were  Tories  and  Waverers.^  I  have  always  turned  out  to 
fight  tlieir  battles,  and  when  I  saw  no  other  Clergyman  turn 
out  but  myself  —  and  this  in  times  before  liberality  was  well 
recompensed,  and  therefore  in  fashion,  and  when  the  smallest 
appearance  of  it  seemed  to  condemn  a  Churchman  to  the 
grossest  obloquy,  and  the  most  hopeless  poverty.  It  may 
suit  the  purpose  of  the  ^Ministers  to  flatter  the  Bench ;  it  does 
not  suit  mine.  I  do  not  choose  in  my  old  age  to  be  tossed  as 
a  prey  to  the  Bishops ;  I  have  not  deserved  this  of  my  Whig 
friends." 

,  It  is  perhaps  not  surprising  that  the  Whig  Ministers 
should  have  remained  impervious  to  arguments  thus 
enforced.  On  the  10th  of  February,  Sydney  Smith 
wrote  to  Lord  Jolm  Eussell  (whom  he  addressed  as 
"  My  dear  John  "  )  :  — 

"  You  say  you  are  not  convinced  by  my  pamphlet.  I  am 
afraid  that  I  am  a  very  arrogant  person ;  but  I  do  assure  you 
that,  in  the  fondest  moments  of  self-conceit,  the  idea  of  con- 
vincing a  Russell  that  he  was  wrong  never  came  across  my 
mind.  Euclid  would  have  had  a  bad  chance  with  you  if  you 
had  happened  to  have  formed  an  opinion  that  the  interior 
angles  of  a  triangle  were  not  equal  to  two  right  angles.  The 
more  poor  Euclid  demonstrated,  the  more  you  would  not  have 
been  convinced." 

In  1838  Sydney  Smith  published  a  second  Letter  to 
the  same  Archdeacon :  — 

"  It  is  a  long  time  since  you  heard  from  me,  and  in  the 
mean  time  the  poor  Church  of  England  has  been  trembling, 

1  Compare  his  letter  to  Lady  Hoiiand,  May  14, 1835:—  "  Liberals 
of  the  eleventh  hour  abound!  and  there  are  some  of  the  first 
hour,  of  whose  work  in  the  toil  and  heat  of  the  day  I  have  no 
recollection  I  " 


168  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

from  the  Bishop  who  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  to  the  Curate 
who  rideth  upon  the  hackney  horse.  I  began  writing  on  the 
subject  in  order  to  avoid  bursting  from  indignation ;  and,  as  it 
is  not  my  habit  to  recede,  I  will  go  on  till  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land is  either  up  or  down  —  semianimous  on  its  back  or 
vigorous  on  its  legs.  ...  If  what  I  write  is  liked,  so  much 
the  better ;  but,  liked  or  not  liked,  sold  or  not  sold,  Wilson 
Crokered  or  not  Wilson  Crokered,  I  will  write."  ^ 

He  now  returns  to  the  ^'Prebends"  which  the 
Commissioners  propose  to  confiscate.  Some  of  these, 
he  says,  are  properties  of  great  value.  He  instances 
one  which  will  soon  be  worth  between  £40,000  and 
£60,000  a  year.  Some  of  them  are  held  by  non- 
residentiary  Prebendaries,  who  never  come  near  the 
Cathedral,  and  who  have  no  duty  except  to  enjoy  their 
incomes.  Those  prebends  Sydney  Smith,  as  a  real 
though  temperate  reformer,  would  now  surrender,  and 
make  from  them  a  fund  to  enrich  poor  livings.  But 
for  the  prebends  of  the  Residentiaries,  who  perform  the 
daily  duties  of  the  Cathedral,  he  will  fight  to  the  death. 
With  splendid  courage  he  asserts  that  these  great 
estates,  held  for  life  by  ecclesiastical  officers,  are  as 
well  managed,  and  as  profitably  employed,  with  a  view 
to  the  general  interests  of  the  community,  as  the  lands 
of  any  peer  or  squire.  — 

"  Take,  for  instance,  the  Cathedral  of  Bristol,  the  whole  es- 
tates of  which  are  about  equal  to  keeping  a  pack  of  fox-hounds. 
If  this  had  been  in  the  hands  of  a  country  gentleman  ;  instead 
of  Precentor,  Succentor,  Dean,  and  Canons,  and  Sexton, 
you  would  have  had  huntsman,  whippers-in,  dog-feeders,  and 
stoppers  of  earths ;  the  old  squire,  full  of  foolish  opinions  and 
fermented  liquids,  and  a  young  gentleman  of  gloves,  waist- 

1  John  Wilson  Croker  (1780-1857),  M.P.  and  Tory  pamphleteer. 


VI.]  ARCHDEACON  SINGLETON  169 

coats,  and  pantaloons  :  and  how  many  generations  might  it 
be  before  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  noodles  would  pro- 
duce such  a  man  as  Professor  Lee/  one  of  the  Prebendaries 
of  Bristol,  and  by  far  the  most  eminent  Oriental  scholar  in 
Europe." 

Then  he  reverts  to  his  familiar  argument  that  the 
abolition  of  these  ecclesiastical  prizes  would  lower  the 
social  character  of  the  clergy  as  a  body.  — 

"  To  get  a  stall,  and  to  be  preceded  by  men  with  silver 
rods,  is  the  bait  which  the  ambitious  squire  is  perpetually 
holding  out  to  his  second  son.  ...  If  such  sort  of  prefer- 
ments are  extinguished,  a  very  serious  evil  (as  I  have  often 
said  before)  is  done  to  the  Church  —  the  service  becomes 
unpopular,  further  spoliation  is  dreaded,  the  whole  system  is 
considered  to  be  altered  and  degraded,  capital  is  withdrawn 
from  the  Church,  and  no  one  enters  into  the  profession  but 
the  sons  of  farmers  and  little  tradesmen,  who  would  be  foot- 
men if  they  were  not  vicars  —  or  figure  on  the  coach-box  if 
they  were  not  lecturing  from  the  pulpit, 

"  If  you  were  to  gather  a  Parliament  of  Curates  on  the 
hottest  Sunday  in  the  year,  after  all  the  services,  sermons, 
burials,  and  baptisms  of  the  day,  were  over,  and  to  offer  them 
such  increase  of  salary  as  would  be  produced  by  the  confis- 
cation of  the  Cathedral  property,  I  am  conviuced  they  would 
reject  the  measure,  and  prefer  si^lendid  hope,  and  the  expecta- 
tion of  good  fortune  in  advanced  life,  to  the  trifling  improve- 
ment of  poverty  which  such  a  fund  could  afford.  Charles 
James,  of  London,  was  a  Curate  ;  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  ^ 
was  a  Curate;  almost  every  rose-and-shovel  man  has  been  a 
Curate  in  his  time.     All  Curates  hope  to  draw  great  prizes. 

"  One  of  the  most  foolish  circumstances  attending  this 

1  Samuel  Lee  (178.V1852). 

2  Charles  Kichard  Sumner  (1790-1874). 


170  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

destruction  of  Cathedral  property  is  the  great  sacrifice  of  the 
patronage  of  tlie  Crown :  the  Crown  gives  wp  eight  Prebends 
of  Westminster,  two  at  Worcester,  £1500  per  annum  at  St. 
Paul's,  two  Prebends  at  Bristol,  and  a  great  deal  of  other 
preferment  all  over  the  kingdom  :  and  tliis  at  a  moment  when 
such  extraordinary  power  has  been  suddenly  conferred  upon 
the  people,  and  when  every  atom  of  power  and  patronage 
ought  to  be  husbanded  for  the  Crown.  A  Prebend  of 
Westminster  for  my  second  son  would  soften  the  Catos  of 
Conihill,  and  lull  the  Gracchi  of  the  Metropolitan  Boroughs. 
Lives  there  a  man  so  absurd,  as  to  suppose  that  Government 
can  be  carried  on  without  those  gentle  allurements?  You 
may  as  well  attempt  to  poultice  off  the  humps  of  a  camel's 
back  as  to  cure  mankind  of  these  little  corruptions. 

"  I  am  terribly  alarmed  by  a  committee  of  Cathedrals  now 
sitting  in  London,  and  planning  a  petition  to  the  Legislature 
to  be  heard  by  counsel.  They  will  take  such  high  ground, 
and  talk  a  language  so  utterly  at  variance  with  the  feelings 
of  the  age  about  Church  Property,  that  I  am  much  afraid 
they  will  do  more  harm  than  good.  In  the  time  of  Lord 
George  Gordon's  riots,  the  Guards  said  they  did  not  care  for 
the  mob,  if  the  Gentlemen  Volunteers  behind  would  be  so 
good  as  not  to  hold  their  muskets  in  such  a  dangerous  man- 
ner. I  don't  care  for  popular  clamour,  and  think  it  might 
now  be  defied ;  but  I  confess  the  Gentlemen  Volunteers 
alarm  me.  They  have  imfortunately,  too,  collected  their 
addresses,  and  published  them  in  a  single  volume !  !  !  "  i 

And  now  he  returns  to  one  of  the  prominent  topics 
of  his  first  Letter,  and  reminds  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  that  he  has  sworn  to  protect  the  rights 
and  possessions  of  the  Metropolitical  Church  of 
Canterbury.  — 

1  On  the  13th  of  January  1838,  he  wrote  to  the  Bishop  of  London 
— "  I  think  the  best  reason  for  destroying  the  Cathedrals  is  the 
abominable  trash  and  nonsense  they  have  all  published  since  the 
beginning  of  this  dispute." 


VI.]  ARCHDEACON   SINGLETON  171 

"  A  friend  of  mine  has  suggested  to  me  that  his  Grace  has 
perhaps  forgotten  the  oath;  but  tliis  cannot  be,  for  the  first 
Protestant  in  Europe  of  course  makes  a  memoi-andum  in  his 
pocket-book  of  all  the  oaths  he  takes  to  do,  or  to  abstain. 
The  oath,  liowever,  may  be  less  present  to  the  Archbishop's 
memory,  from  the  fact  of  his  not  having  taken  the  oath  in 
person,  but  by  the  medium  of  a  gentleman  sent  down  by  the 
coach  to  take  it  for  him  —  a  practice  which,  though  I  believe  it 
to  have  been  long  established  in  the  Church,  surprised  me,  I 
confess,  not  a  little.  A  proxy  to  vote,  if  you  please  —  a  proxy 
to  consent  to  arrangements  of  estates  if  wanted  ;  but  a  proxy 
sent  down  in  the  Canterbury  Fly,  to  take  the  Creator  to 
witness  that  tlie  Archbishop,  detained  in  town  by  business 
or  pleasure,  will  never  violate  that  foundation  of  piety  over 
which  he  presides —  all  this  seems  to  me  an  act  of  the  most 
extraordinary  indolence  ever  recorded  in  history.  If  an 
Ecclesiastic,  not  a  Bishop,  may  express  any  opinion  on  the 
reforms  of  the  Church,  I  recommend  that  Archbishops  and 
Bishops  should  take  no  more  oaths  by  proxy ;  but,  as  they  do 
not  wait  upon  the  Sovereign  or  the  Prime  Minister,  or  even 
any  of  the  Cabinet,  by  proxy,  that  they  should  also  perform 
all  religious  acts  in  their  own  person.  ...  I  have  been 
informed,  though  I  will  not  answer  for  the  accuracy  of  the 
information,  that  this  vicarious  oath  is  likely  to  produce  a 
scene  which  would  have  puzzled  the  Ductor  Dubitantium. 
The  attorney  who  took  the  oath  for  the  Archbishop  is, 
they  say,  seized  with  religious  horrors  at  the  approaching  con- 
fiscation of  Canterbury  property,  and  has  in  vain  tendered 
back  his  6s.  8d.  for  taking  the  oath.  The  Archbishop  refuses 
to  accept  it;  and  feeling  himself  light  and  disencumbered, 
wisely  keeps  the  saddle  upon  the  back  of  the  writhing  and 
agonized  scrivener.  I  have  talked  it  over  with  several 
Clergymen,  and  the  general  opinion  is,  that  the  scrivener 
will  suffer." 

And  next  he  turns  his  attention  to  a  foolish  Bishop 
who  has  argued  in  a  pamphlet  that,  if  a  fund  for  the 
improvement  of  poor  benefices  was  to  be  created,  it 


172  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

must  be  drawn  from  the  property  of  the  Cathedrals, 
because  the  Bishops'  incomes  had  already  been  pruned. 

"This  is  very  good  Episcopal  reasoning;  but  is  it  true? 
The  Bishops  and  Commissioners  wanted  a  fund  to  endow 
small  Livings ;  they  did  not  touch  a  farthing  of  their  own 
incomes,  only  distributed  them  a  little  more  equally;  and 
proceeded  lustily  at  once  to  confiscate  Cathedral  Property. 
But  why  was  it  necessary,  if  the  fund  for  small  Livings  was 
such  a  paramount  consideration,  that  the  future  Archbishops 
of  Canterbury  should  be  left  with  two  palaces,  and  £15,000 
per  annum  ?  Why  is  every  future  Bishop  of  London  to  have 
a  palace  in  Fulham,  ahouse  in  St.  James's  Square,  and  £10,000 
a  year?  Could  not  all  the  Episcopal  functions  be  carried  on 
well  and  effectually  with  the  half  of  these  incomes?  Is  it 
necessary  that  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  should  give 
feasts  to  Aristocratic  London  ;  and  that  the  domestics  of  the 
Prelacy  should  stand  with  swords  and  bag-wigs  round  pig, 
and  turkey,  and  venison,  to  defend,  as  it  were,  the  Orthodox 
gastronome  from  the  fierce  Unitarian,  the  fell  Baptist,  and  all 
the  famished  children  of  Dissent?  I  don't  object  to  all  this ; 
because  I  am  sure  that  the  method  of  j^rizes  and  blanks  is  the 
best  method  of  supporting  a  Church  which  must  be  considered 
as  very  slenderly  endowed,  if  the  whole  were  equally  divided 
among  the  parishes;  but  if  my  opinion  were  different  —  if  I 
thought  the  important  improvement  was  to  equalize  prefer- 
ment in  the  English  Church  —  that  such  a  measure  was  not 
the  one  thing  foolish,  but  the  one  thingneedful  —  I  should  take 
care,  as  a  mitred  Commissioner,  to  reduce  my  own  species 
of  preferment  to  the  narrowest  limits,  before  I  proceeded  to 
confiscate  the  property  of  any  other  grade  of  the  Church.  .  .  . 
Frequently  did  Lord  John  meet  the  destroying  Bishops ;  much 
did  he  commend  their  daily  heap  of  ruins;  sweetly  did  they 
smile  on  each  other,  and  much  charming  talk  was  there  of 
meteorology  and  catarrh,  and  the  particular  Cathedral  they 
were  pulling  down  at  each  period  ;  till  one  fine  day  the  Home 
Secretary ,1  with  a  voice  more  bland,  and  a  look  more  ardently 
affectionate,  than  that  which  the  masculine  mouse  bestows 

1  Lord  John  Russell. 


VI.]  ARCHDEACON  SINGLETON  173 

on  his  nibbling  female,  informed  them  that  the  Government 
meant  to  take  all  the  Church  property  into  their  own  hands, 
to  pay  the  rates  out  of  it  and  deliver  the  residue  to  the  right- 
ful possessors.  Such  an  effect,  they  say,  was  never  before 
produced  by  a  coup  de  theatre.  The  Commission  was  sepa- 
rated in  an  instant.  London  clenched  his  fist.  Canterbury 
was  hurried  out  by  his  chaplains,  and  put  into  a  warm  bed. 
A  solemn  vacancy  spread  itself  over  the  face  of  Gloucester. 
Lincoln  was  taken  out  in  strong  hysterics.  What  a  noble 
scene  Serjeant  Talfourd  ^  would  have  made  of  all  this  ?  Why 
are  such  talents  wasted  on  Ion  and  The  Athenian  Captivel" 

And  then  Sydney  Smith  went  on  to  a  stricture  on 
his  friend  Lord  John  Kussell,  which  has  been  quoted 
in  a  thousand  forms  from  that  day  to  this.  It  is  only 
fair  both  to  the  critic  and  to  the  criticized  that  this 
stricture  should  be  read  in  connexion  with  its  history. 

When,  in  November  1834,  Lord  Althorp's  removal 
to  the  House  of  Lords  vacated  the  Leadership  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  Lord  Melbourne  and  the  rest  of 
the  Cabinet  decided  that  Lord  John  must  take  it.  He 
doubted  his  fitness  for  the  post,  but  said  that  even  if 
he  were  called  to  take  command  of  the  Channel  Fleet, 
he  supposed  he  must  obey  the  call  and  do  his  best. 
Sydney  Smith  heard  of  this  modest  and  patriotic  say- 
ing, and  wove  it  into  his  most  celebrated  passage.  — 

"  There  is  not  a  better  man  in  England  than  Lord  John 
Russell ;  but  his  worst  failure  is  that  he  is  utterly  ignorant 
of  all  moral  fear;  there  is  nothing  he  would  not  undertake. 
I  believe  he  would  perform  the  operation  for  the  stone  —  build 
St.  Peter's  —  or  assume  (with  or  without  ten  minutes'  notice) 
the  command  of  the  Channel  Fleet;  and  no  one  would  dis- 
cover by  his  manner  that  the  patient  had  died  —  the  Church 
tumbled  down  —  and  the  Channel  Fleet  been  knocked  to 
atoms.    I  believe  his  motives  are  always  pure,  and  his  meas- 

1  Thomas  Noon  Talfourd  (1795-1854),  Judge  and  Dramatist. 


174  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

ures  often  able ;  but  they  are  endless,  and  never  done  with 
that  pedetentous  pace  and  pedetentous  mind  in  which  it 
behoves  the  wise  and  virtuous  improver  to  walk.  He  alarms 
the  wise  Liberals ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  sleep  soundly  while 
he  has  the  command  of  the  watch." 

Once  again,  in  1839,  Sydney  Smith  returned  to  the 
same  subject  through  the  same  medium.  He  rejoiced 
in  great  improvements  which  had  been  introduced  into 
the  measures  of  the  Commissioners,  claimed  some 
credit  for  these  improvements,  and  pointed  out  that 
they  materially  affected  the  well-being  of  the  parochial 
clergy.  But,  as  regards  the  dealings  of  the  Commis- 
sion with  Chapters  and  Cathedrals,  he  remains  con- 
vinced that  they  were  rash,  foolish,  and  dangerous  to 
the  Church.  "  Milton  asked  where  the  nymphs  were 
when  Lycidas  perished  ?  I  ask  where  the  Bishops  are 
when  the  remorseless  deep  is  closing  over  the  head  of 
their  beloved  Establishment." 

One  of  the  Bishops  had  emerged  from  silence  and 
security  to  rebuke  the  correspondent  of  Archdeacon 
Singleton,  and  now  he  had  his  reward.  — 

"  You  must  have  read  an  attack  upon  me  by  the  Bishop  of 
Gloucester,!  jjj  i\^q  course  of  which  he  says  that  I  have  not 
been  appointed  to  my  situation  as  Canon  of  St.  Paul's  for  my 
piety  and  learning,  but  because  I  am  a  scoffer  and  a  jester. 
Is  not  tliis  rather  strong  for  a  Bishop,  and  does  it  not  appear 
to  you,  Mr.  Archdeacon,  as  rather  too  close  an  imitation  of 
that  language  which  is  used  in  the  apostolic  occupation  of 
traflBcking  in  fish  ?  Whether  I  have  been  appointed  for  my 
piety  or  not,  must  depend  upon  what  this  poor  man  means 
by  piety.  He  means  by  that  word,  of  course,  a  defence  of  all 
the  tyrannical  and  oppressive  abuses  of  the  Church  which 
have  been  swept  away  within  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years 

1  James  Henry  Monk  (1784-185(3). 


VI.]  ARCHDEACON   SINGLETON  175 

of  my  life;  the  Corporation  and  Test  Acts;  the  Penal  Laws 
against  the  Catholics  ;  the  Compulsory  Marriages  of  Dissent- 
ers, and  all  those  disabling  and  disqualifying  laws  which  were 
the  disgrace  of  our  Church,  and  wliich  he  has  always  looked  up 
to  as  the  consummation  of  human  wisdom.  If  piety  consisted 
in  the  defence  of  these  —  if  it  was  impious  to  struggle  for  their 
abrogation,  I  have  indeed  led  an  ungodly  life.  .  .  .  To  read, 
however,  his  Lordship  a  lesson  of  good  manners,  I  had  pre- 
pared for  him  a  chastisement  which  would  have  been  echoed 
from  the  Segrave  who  banqueteth  in  the  castle,^  to  the  idiot 
who  spitteth  over  the  bridge  at  Gloucester." 

But  the  Bishop  had  made  a  rather  misplaced  appeal 
for  compassion,  on  account  of  his  failing  eyesight; 
and  Sydney,  flinging  him  contemptuously  on  one  side, 
passed  on  to  the  more  formidable  Bishop  of  London.  — 

"  I  was  much  amused  with  what  old  Hermann  says  of  the 
Bishop  of  London's  Mschylus.  '  We  find,'  he  says,  '  a  great 
arbitrariness  of  proceeding,  and  much  boldness  of  innovation, 
guided  ly  no  sure  principle'';  here  it  is:  qtialis  ab  incepto. 
He  begins  with  ^Eschylus,  and  ends  with  the  Church  of 
England;  begins  with  profane,  and  ends  with  holy  innova- 
tions —  scratching  out  old  readings  which  every  commentator 
had  sanctioned;  abolishing  ecclesiastical  dignities  which 
every  reformer  had  spared;  thrusting  an  anapaest  into  a 
verse,  which  will  not  bear  it ;  and  intruding  a  Canon  into  a 
Cathedral,  which  does  not  want  it ;  and  this  is  the  Prelate  by 
whom  the  proposed  reform  of  the  Church  has  been  principally 
planned,  and  to  whose  practical  wisdom  the  Legislature  is 
called  upon  to  defer.  The  Bishop  of  London  is  a  man  of  very 
great  ability,  humane,  placable,  generous,  munificent ;  very 
agreeable,  but  not  to  be  trusted  with  great  interests  where 
calmness  and  judgment  are  required  :  unfortunately,  my  old 
and  amiable  school-fellow,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  has 


1  "William  FitzHardiuge  Berkeley  (1786-1857)  was  created  Lord 
Segrave  of  Berkeley  Castle  in  1831,  aud  Earl  FitzHardiuge  in 
1841. 


176  SYDNEY   SMITH  [char 

melted  away  before  him,  and  sacrificed  that  wisdom  on  which 
we  all  founded  our  security.  .  .  .  Whatever  happens,  I  am 
not  to  blame.     I  have  fought  my  fight.     Farewell." 

A  little  later  he  wrote  to  an  old  friend  :  — 

"  I  don't  like  writing  to  the  Bishop  of  London  :  it  is  mak- 
ing a  fuss,  and  looks  as  if  I  regretted  the  part  I  had  taken  on 
Church  Reform,  which  I  certainly  do  not  —  but  I  should  be 
much  annoyed  if  the  Bishop  were  to  consider  me  as  a  per- 
petual grumbler  against  him  and  his  measures  —  I  really  am 
not :  I  like  the  Bishop  and  like  his  conversation  —  the  battle 
is  ended,  and  I  have  no  other  quarrel  with  him  and  the  Arch- 
bishop but  that  they  neither  of  them  ever  ask  me  to  dinner. 
You  see  a  good  deal  of  the  Bishop,  and  as  you  have  always 
exhorted  me  to  be  a  good  boy,  take  an  opportunity  to  set  him 
right  as  to  my  real  dispositions  towards  him,  and  exhort  him, 
as  he  has  gained  the  victory,  to  forgive  a  few  hard  knocks." 

In  the  summer  of  1839  Courtenay  Smith  died  sud- 
denly, and  left  no  wdll.^  He  had  accumulated  wealth 
in  India,  and  a  third  part  of  it  now  passed  to  his 
brother  Sydney,  deferring  to  these  circumstances 
four  years  later,  Sydney  wrote  :  — 

"  This  put  me  at  my  ease  for  my  few  remaining  years. 
After  buying  into  the  Consols  and  the  Reduced,  I  read  Seneca 
On  the  Contempt  of  Wealth,     What  intolerable  nonsense  I 

"  I  have  been  very  poor  the  greatest  part  of  my  life,  and 
have  borne  it  as  well,  I  believe,  as  most  people,  but  I  can  safely 
say  that  I  have  been  happier  every  guinea  I  have  gained." 

His  novel  opulence  did  not  paralyze  his   pen.     In 

i"You  see  my  younger  brother,  Courtenay,  is  turned  out  of 
office  in  India,  for  refusing  tlie  surety  of  the  East  India 
Company!  Truly  the  Smiths  are  a  stiff-necked  generation, 
and  yet  they  have  all  got  rich  hut  I.  Courtenay,  they  say, 
has  £150,000,  and  he  keeps  only  a  cat!  In  the  last  letter  I  had 
from  him,  which  was  in  1802,  he  confessed  that  his  money  was 
gathering  very  fast."  (S.  S.  1827). 


VI.]  COLLECTED  WORKS  177 

1839  he  published  a  vehement  attack  upon  the 
Ballot,  from  which  he  foresaw  no  better  results 
than  the  enfranchisement  of  every  one,  including 
women,  universal  corruption,  systematic  lying,  and  a 
victory  for  the  "  lower  order  of  voters "  over  their 
"  betters."  Of  the  great  advocate  of  the  Ballot, 
George  Grote,^  he  says  —  "  Mr.  Grote  knows  the  rela- 
tive values  of  gold  and  silver ;  but  by  what  moral  rate 
of  exchange  is  he  able  to  tell  us  the  relative  values 
of  Liberty  and  Truth  ?  " 

The  paper  on  the  Ballot  was  included  in  a  collection 
of  reprints,  mainly  from  the  Edinburgh  Revieiv,  which 
he  published  in  1839.  The  book  sold  so  well  that 
in  1840  he  published  an  enlarged  edition.  The  articles 
reprinted  from  the  Edinburgh  amounted  to  sixty-five, 
and  a  memorandum  by  his  daughter  shows  that  twelve 
more  were  omitted  from  the  reproduction,  "  probably 
because  their  subjects  are  already  treated  of  in  the 
extracted  articles,  or  because  they  applied  only  to  the 
period  in  which  they  were  written."  The  complete 
list  will  be  found  in  Appendix  A. 

In  the  preface  to  these  collected  pieces,  which  are 
styled  The  Works  of  the  Rev.  Sydney  Smith,  the  author 
said,  after  recounting  the  circumstances  under  which 
the  Edinburgh  Review  was  founded :  — 

"  To  set  on  foot  such  a  Journal  in  such  times,  to  contribute 
towards  it  for  many  years,  to  bear  patiently  the  reproach  and 
poverty  which  it  caused,  and  to  look  back  and  see  that  I  have 
nothing  to  retract,  and  no  intemperance  and  violence  to 
reproach  myself  with,  is  a  career  of  life  which  I  must  think 
to  be  extremely  fortunate.     Strange  and  ludicrous  are  the 

1  (1794-1871),  Banker,  historian,  and  politician. 

N 


178  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

changes  in  human  affairs.  The  Tories  are  now  on  the  tread- 
mill, and  the  well-paid  Whigs  are  riding  in  chariots:  with 
many  faces,  however,  looking  out  of  the  windows  (including 
that  of  our  Prime  Minister  i),  which  I  never  remember  to 
have  seen  in  the  days  of  the  poverty  and  depression  of 
Whiggism.  Liberality  is  now  a  lucrative  business.  Who- 
ever has  any  institution  to  destroy,  may  consider  himself  as 
a  Commissioner,  and  his  fortune  as  made ;  and,  to  my  utter 
and  never-ending  astonishment,  I,  an  oldP^dinburgh  Reviewer, 
find  myself  fighting,  in  the  year  1839,  against  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  for  the  existence 
of  the  I^ational  Church." 

Some  of  the  reprinted  articles  would  be  fairly 
ranked  in  the  present  day  under  the  derogatory  title 
of  "  Pot-boilers " ;  but  others  are  among  the  most 
efEective  and  entertaining  pieces  which  the  author 
ever  penned.  Some  of  these  must  be  specified.  There 
is  the  extraordinarily  amusing,  but  quite  unjust,  attack 
on  Methodism,  under  which  convenient  heading  are 
grouped  "  the  sentiments  of  Arminian  and  Calvinistic 
Methodists,  and  of  the  Evangelical  clergymen  of  the 
Church  of  England."  The  fun  in  this  article  is  chiefly 
gleaned  from  the  pages  of  the  Evangelical  Magazine 
and  the  Methodist  Magazine.  Here  we  have  the 
affecting  story  of  the  young  man  who  swore,  and 
was  stung  by  a  bee  "on  the  tip  of  the  unruly 
member,"  "  one  of  the  meanest  of  creatures  "  being 
thus  employed  "  to  reprove  the  bold  transgressor." 
Kot  less  moving  are  the  reflexions  of  the  religious 
observer  who  saw  a  man  driving  clumsily  in  a  gig.  — 
"  '  What  (I  said  to  myself)  if  a  single  untoward  cir- 
cumstance should  happen!  Should  the  horse  take 
fright,  or  the  wheel  on  either  side  get  entangled,  or 

1  William,  Viscount  Melbourne  (1779-1848). 


VI.]  COLLECTED   WOKKS  179 

the  gig  upset,  —  in  either  case  what  can  preserve  them  ? 
And  should  a  morning  so  fair  and  promising  bring 
on  evil  before  night,  —  should  death  on  his  pale  horse 
appear,  —  what  follows  ?  '  My  mind  shuddered  at 
the  images  I  had  raised." 

Very  curious  too  is  the  case  of  the  people  who, 
desiring  to  go  by  sea  to  Margate,  found  the  cabin 
occupied  by  a  "  mixed  multitude  who  spoke  almost 
all  languages  but  that  of  Canaan " ;  and  started  a 
weekly  hoy  on  which  "  no  profane  conversation  was 
allowed."  The  advertisements  are  as  quaint  as  the 
correspondence.  — 

" '  Wanted,  a  man  of  serious  character,  who  can  shave.' 
*  Wanted,  a  serious  young  woman,  as  servant  of  all  work.' 
'  Wants  a  place,  a  young  man  who  has  brewed  in  a  serious 
family.' " 

On  these  eccentricities  of  mistaken  devotion,  Sydney 
pounces  with  delighted  malice ;  and  his  jokes,  acrid 
as  they  are,  seem  to  be  the  vehicles  of  a  real  convic- 
tion. He  honestly  believed  that  "  enthusiasm "  in 
religion  tended  to  hysteria  and  insanity ;  that  it  sapped 
plain  morality  ;  and  turned  the  simple  poor  into  "active 
and  mysterious  fools."  Something,  he  thought,  "  in 
the  way  of  ridicule,"  might  be  done  towards  checking 
IMethodism,  and  to  that  task  he  addressed  himself 
with  hearty  goodwill. 

Equally  unfair,  and  equally  insensible  to  all  the 
appeals  of  religious  fervour,  is  the  article  on  Indian 
Missions,  for  which,  fifty  years  after,  Archbishop 
Tait  found  it  hard  to  forgive  him.^     Here  again  the 

1  "  Have  you  read  Sydney  Smith's  Life?  There  is  a  strange 
mixture  in  his  character  of  earnest  common-sense  and  fun.    On 


180  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

artificial  quaintness  of  religious  phrase  and  thouglit 
gave  him  the  necessary  material  for  his  fun.  As  he 
had  found  delight  in  the  proper  names  of  Methodist 
ministers  —  Shufflebottom  and  Ringletub  ^  —  so  he  de- 
lighted in  lampooning  "Ram  Boshoo,"  and^Buxoo  a 
brother,"  and  "  the  Catechist  of  Collesigrapatuam." 

The  saintly  and  scholarly  Carey  -  ought  to  have  been 
safe  from  his  attacks,  but  the  Baptist  Missionary 
Society  rather  invited  ridicule.  — 

"  Brother  Carey,  while  very  sea-sick,  and  leaning  over  the 
ship  to  relieve  his  stomach  from  that  very  oppressive  com- 
plaint, said  his  mind  was  even  then  filled  with  consolation 
in  contemplating  the  wonderful  goodness  of  God." 

And  Brother  Carey's  own  journal  was  calculated  to 
raise  a  smile.  — 


the  whole,  I  think  he  will  be  thought  more  highly  of  in  conse- 
quence of  tlie  publication  of  the  Life,  though  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  his  religion  was  not  injured  by  his  strong  sense  of 
the  ludicrous.  I  cannot  forgive  him  for  his  anti-missionary  arti- 
cles in  the  Edinburgh  Review."  —  Life  of  Archbishop  Tail,  vol.  i. 
chapter  xiii. 

What  seems  to  be  his  later  and  juster  judgment  on  missionary 
work  is  given,  without  date,  by  Lady  Holland.  "  Some  one, 
speaking  of  Missions,  ridiculed  them  as  inefficient.  He  dis- 
sented, saying,  that  though  all  was  not  done  that  was  projected, 
or  even  boasted  of,  yet  that  much  good  resulted ;  and  that  wherever 
Christianity  was  taught,  it  brought  with  it  the  additional  good  of 
civilization  in  its  train,  and  men  became  better  carpenters,  better 
cultivators,  better  everything." 

1  "  It  is  immaterial  whether  Mr.  Shufflebottom  preaches  at 
Bungay,  and  Mr.  Ringletub  at  Ipswich ;  or  whether  an  artful 
vicissitude  is  adopted,  and  the  order  of  insane  predication 
reversed." 

2  William  Carey  (1761-1834),  shoemaker.  Orientalist,  and 
missionary. 


VI.]  COLLECTED   WORKS  181 

"  1793.  June  30.  Lord's-day.  A  pleasant  and  profitable 
day:  our  congregation  composed  of  ten  persons." 

"  July  7.  Another  pleasant  and  profitable  Lord's-day  :  our 
congregation  increased  with  one.  Had  much  sweet  enjoy- 
ment with  God." 

"  1791.  Jan.  26.  Lord's-day.  Found  much  pleasure  in 
reading  Edwards's  Sermon  on  the  Justice  of  God  in  the 
Damnation  of  Sinners." 

"  April  6.  Had  some  sweetness  to-day,  especially  in  read- 
ing Edwards's  Sermon." 

"  1796.  Feb.  6.  I  am  now  in  my  study ;  and  oh,  it  is  a 
sweet  place,  because  of  the  presence  of  God  with  the  vilest 
of  men.  It  is  at  the  top  of  the  house ;  I  have  but  one 
window  in  it." 

In  reply  to  Jeffrey,  who  as  Editor  of  the  Edi7i- 
huvgli  Review  rebuked  his  contributor  for  ''  levity  of 
quotations,"  Sydney  Smith  wrote  in  1808 :  — 

"  I  do  not  understand  what  you  mean.  I  attack  these  men 
because  they  have  foolish  notions  of  religion.  The  more 
absurd  the  passage,  the  more  necessary  it  should  be  dis- 
played —  the  more  urgent  the  reason  for  making  the  attack 
at  all." 

This  is  at  any  rate  an  explanation,  even  if  it  does 
not  amount  to  a  justification;  but  what  is  lamentable 
is  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Methodists  at  home,  he 
seems  frankly  unable  to  conceive  of  the  passion  for 
spreading  the  Gospel  which  drove  men  from  all  that 
is  enjoyable  in  life  to  slave  and  die  under  Indian  suns. 
He  seems  genuinely  to  believe  that  the  spread  of  the 
Christian  religion  in  India  will  produce  a  revolution, 
and  he  turns  the  ludicrous  blunders  of  religious  men 
into  arguments  for  slothfulness  in  evangelization.  — 

"  If  there  were  a  fair  prospect  of  carrying  the  Gospel  into 
regions  where  it  was  before  unknown,  —  if  such  a  project  did 
not  expose  the  best  possessions  of  the  country  to  extreme 


182  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

danger,  and  if  it  was  in  the  hands  of  men  who  were  discreet 
as  well  as  devout,  we  should  consider  it  to  be  a  scheme  of 
true  piety,  benevolence,  and  wisdom :  but  the  baseness  and 
malignity  of  fanaticism  shall  never  prevent  us  from  attacking 
its  arrogance,  its  ignorance,  and  its  activity.  For  what  vice 
can  be  more  tremendous  than  that  which,  while  it  wears  the 
outward  a^jpearance  of  religion,  destroys  the  happiness  of 
man,  and  dishonours  the  name  of  God?" 

In  the  second  article  on  Methodism,  he  returns,  as 
his  manner  was,  to  the  ground  formerly  traversed,  and 
claims  the  praise  of  all  reasonable  men  for  his  previous 
strictures.  — 

"  In  routing  out  a  nest  of  consecrated  cobblers,  and  in 
bringing  to  light  such  a  perilous  heap  of  trash  as  we  were 
obliged  to  work  through,  in  our  articles  upon  the  Methodists 
and  Missionaries,  we  are  generally  conceived  to  have  rendered 
an  useful  service  to  the  cause  of  rational  religion." 

But  he  had  been  rebuked  by  the  admirers  of  the 
Cobblers,  and  now  he  turns  upon  his  rebukers  wdth 
characteristic  vigour.  Prominent  among  these  was 
the  Eev.  John  Styles,  and  Mr.  Styles,  unhappily 
for  his  cause  and  happily  for  his  opponent,  made  a 
grotesque  slip  which  Sydney  turned  to  the  best 
advantage.  — 

"  In  speaking  of  the  cruelties  which  their  religion  entails 
upon  the  Hindoos,  Mr.  Styles  is  peculiarly  severe  upon  us 
for  not  beiug  more  shocked  at  their  piercing  their  limbs  with 
Mines.  This  is  rather  an  unfair  mode  of  alarming  his  readers 
with  the  idea  of  some  unknown  instrument.  He  repi'esents 
himself  as  having  paid  considerable  attention  to  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  Hindoos;  and,  therefore,  the  peculiar 
stress  he  lays  upon  this  instrument  is  naturally  calculated  to 
produce,  in  the  minds  of  the  humane,  a  great  degree  of 
mysterious  terror.  A  drawing  of  the  kime  was  imperiously 
called  for;  and  the  want  of  it  is  a  subtle  evasion,  for  which 


VI.]  COLLECTED   WORKS  183 

Mr.  Styles  is  fairly  accountable.  As  he  has  been  silent  on 
this  subject,  it  is  for  us  to  explain  the  plan  and  nature  of 
this  terrible  and  unknown  piece  of  mechanism.  Kimes,  then, 
are  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  false  print  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  for  knives  ;  and  from  this  blunder  of  the  printer  has 
Mr.  Styles  manufactured  this  Dsedalean  instrument  of  torture, 
called  a  kime\  We  were  at  first  nearly  persuaded  by  his 
argument  against  kimes ;  we  grew  frightened  ; — we  stated  to 
ourselves  the  horror  of  not  sending  missionaries  to  a  nation 
which  used  kimes ;  —  we  were  struck  with  the  nice  and  ac- 
curate information  of  the  Tabernacle  upon  this  important 
subject :  —  but  we  looked  in  the  errata,  and  found  Mr.  Styles 
to  be  always  Mr.  Styles  —  always  cut  off  from  every  hope  of 
mercy,  and  remaining  for  ever  himself." 

At  the  end  of  the  article,  the  writer  glories  in  the 
fact  that  the  Government  of  India  is  beginning  to 
harry  the  missionaries.  — 

"  The  Board  of  Control  (all  Atheists,  and  disciples  of 
Yoltaii-e,  of  course)  are  so  entirely  of  our  way  of  thinking, 
that  the  most  peremptory  orders  have  been  issued  to  send  all 
the  missionaries  home  upon  the  slightest  appearance  of  dis- 
turbance. Those  who  have  sons  and  brothers  in  India  may 
now  sleep  in  peace.  Upon  the  transmission  of  this  order, 
Mr.  Styles  is  said  to  have  destroyed  himself  with  a  kime." 

The  same  vigorous  dislike  to  the  Evangelical  way 
of  religion  animates  the  article  on  Hannah  IVIore ; 
and  here  again  the  criticized  writer  gave  the  critic 
just  the  handle  which  he  required. 

"  We  observe  that  Mrs.  More,  in  one  part  of  her  work,  falls 
into  the  common  error  about  dress.  She  first  blames  ladies 
for  exposing  their  persons  in  the  present  style  of  dress,  and 
then  says,  if  they  knew  their  own  interest — if  they  were 
aware  how  much  more  alluring  they  were  to  men  when  their 
charms  are  less  displayed,  they  would  make  the  desired 
alteration  from  motives  merely  selfish. 

" '  Oh !  if  women  in  general  knew  what  was   their  real 


18i  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

interest,  if  they  could  guess  with  what  a  charm  even  the 
appearance  of  modesty  invests  its  possessor,  they  would  dress 
decorously  from  mere  self-love,  if  not  from  principle.  The 
designing  would  assume  modesty  as  an  artifice  ;  the  coquette 
would  adopt  it  as  an  allurement ;  the  pure  as  her  appropriate 
attraction  ;  and  the  voluptuous  as  the  most  infallible  art  of 
seduction.' 

"  If  there  is  any  truth  in  this  passage,  nudity  becomes  a 
virtue  ;  and  no  decent  woman,  for  the  future,  can  be  seen  in 
garments." 

That  is  aptly  said ;  but  it  is  a  relief  to  turn  from 
Sydney  Smith  the  Philistine  —  the  bigoted  and  rather 
brutal  opponent  of  enthusiastic  religion,  to  Sydney 
Smith  the  Philanthropist  —  the  passionate  advocate 
of  humanitarian  reform  born  at  least  fifty  years  before 
his  time.  Excellent  illustrations  of  this  aspect  of  his 
character  are  to  be  found  in  "  Mad  Quakers,"  with  its 
study  of  the  improved  methods  of  treating  lunacy; 
"  Chimney-Sweepers,"  "  Game-Laws,"  "  Spring-Guns," 
"  Prisons,"  and  "  Counsel  for  Prisoners."  Each  of 
these  essays  shows  a  deliciously  w^arm  sympathy  with 
the  sufferings  of  the  downtrodden  and  the  friendless ; 
and  a  curiously  intimate  knowledge  of  matters  which 
lie  quite  outside  the  scope  of  a  clergyman's  ordinary 
duties.  As  an  appreciation  of  character,  friendly  but 
not  servile,  nothing  can  be  better  than  his  paper  on  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,^  with  the  illustration  from  Curran, 
and  the  noble  image  (which  the  writer  himself  admired) 
of  the  man-of-war.  Writing  to  Sir  James's  son,  Sydney 
Smith  says :  — 

"  Curran,  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  said  to  Mr.  Grattan, 
'  You  would  be  the  greatest  man  of  your  age,  Grattan,  if  you 

1  (1765-1832),  historian  aud  philosopher. 


VI.]  COLLECTED   WORKS  185 

would  buy  a  few  yards  of  red  tape,  and  tie  up  your  bills  and 
papers.'  This  was  the  fault  or  the  misfortune  of  your  excellent 
father;  he  never  knew  the  use  of  red  tape,  and  was  utterly 
unfit  for  the  common  business  of  life.  That  a  guinea  repre- 
sented a  quantity  of  shillings,  and  that  it  would  barter  for 
a  quantity  of  cloth,  he  was  well  aware ;  but  the  accurate 
number  of  the  baser  coin,  or  the  just  measurement  of  the 
manufactured  article,  to  which  he  was  entitled  for  his  gold,  he 
could  never  learn,  and  it  was  impossible  to  teach  him.  Hence 
his  life  was  often  an  example  of  the  ancient  and  melancholy 
struggle  of  genius  with  the  difficulties  of  existence. 

•  •■•••• 

"  A  high  merit  in  Sir  James  Mackintosh  was  his  real  and 
unaffected  philanthropy.  He  did  not  make  the  improvement 
of  the  great  mass  of  mankind  an  engine  of  popularity,  and  a 
stepping-stone  to  power,  but  he  had  a  genuine  love  of  human 
happiness.  Whatever  might  assuage  the  angry  passions,  and 
arrange  the  conflicting  interests  of  nations ;  whatever  could 
promote  peace,  increase  knowledge,  extend  commerce,  dimin- 
ish crime,  and  encourage  industry;  whatever  could  exalt 
human  character,  and  could  enlarge  human  understanding, 
struck  at  once  at  the  heart  of  your  father,  and  roused  all 
his  faculties.  I  have  seen  him  in  a  moment  when  this  spirit 
came  upon  him  —  like  a  great  ship  of  war  —  cut  his  cable, 
and  spread  his  enormous  canvas,  and  launch  into  a  wide  sea 
of  reasoning  eloquence." 

For  pure  fun,  one  could  not  quote  a  better  sample 
than  the  review  of  Waterton's  ^  Travels  in  South 
America.  — 

"  Snakes  are  certainly  an  annoyance ;  but  the  snake,  though 
high-spirited,  is  not  quarrelsome  ;  he  considers  his  fangs  to  be 
given  for  defence,  and  not  for  annoyance,  and  never  inflicts  a 
wound  but  to  defend  existence.  If  you  tread  upon  him,  he 
puts  you  to  death  for  your  clumsiness,  merely  because  he  does 
not  understand  what  your  clumsiness  means  ;  and  certainly  a 

1  Charles  Waterton  (1782-18G5),  naturalist. 


186  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

snake,  who  feels  fourteen  or  fifteen  stone  stamping  upon  his 
tail,  has  little  time  for  reflexion,  and  may  be  allowed  to  be 
poisonous  and  peevish.  American  tigers  generally  run  away 
—  from  which  several  respectable  gentlemen  in  Parliament 
inferred,  in  the  American  war,  that  American  soldiers  would 
run  away  also  ! 

"  The  description  of  the  birds  is  very  animated  and  interest- 
ing ;  but  how  far  does  the  gentle  reader  imagine  the  Campanero 
may  be  heard,  whose  size  is  that  of  a  jay?  Perhaps  300 
yards.  Poor  innocent,  ignorant  reader !  unconscious  of  what 
Nature  has  done  in  the  forests  of  Cayenne,  and  measuring  the 
force  of  tropical  intonation  by  the  sounds  of  a  Scotch  duck  1 
The  Campanero  may  be  heard  three  miles !  —  this  single  little 
bird  being  more  powerful  than  the  belfry  of  a  cathedral, 
ringing  for  a  new  dean  —  just  appointed  on  account  of  shabby 
politics,  small  understanding,  and  good  family !  .  .  .  It  is 
impossible  to  contradict  a  gentleman  who  has  been  in  the 
forests  of  Cayenne ;  but  we  are  determined,  as  soon  as  a 
Campanero  is  brought  to  England,  to  make  him  toll  in  a 
public  place,  and  have  the  distance  measured. 

"  The  Toucan  has  an  enormous  bill,  makes  a  noise  like  a 
puppy  dog,  and  lays  his  eggs  in  hollow  trees.  How  astonish- 
ing are  the  freaks  and  fancies  of  nature  !  To  what  purpose, 
we  say,  is  a  bird  placed  in  the  woods  of  Cayenne  with 
a  bill  a  yard  long,  making  a  noise  like  a  puppy  dog,  and 
laying  eggs  in  hollow  trees?  The  Toucans,  to  be  sure, 
might  retort,  to  what  purpose  were  gentlemen  in  Bond 
Street  created  ?  To  what  purpose  were  certain  foolish 
prating  Members  of  Parliament  created?  —  pestering  the 
House  of  Commons  with  their  ignorance  and  folly,  and 
impeding  the  business  of  the  country?  There  is  no  end  of 
such  questions.  So  we  will  not  enter  into  the  metaphysics 
of  the  Toucan. 

"  The  Sloth,  in  its  wild  state,  spends  its  life  in  trees,  and 
never  leaves  them  but  from  force  or  accident.  The  eagle  to 
the  sky,  the  mole  to  the  ground,  the  sloth  to  the  tree ;  but 
what  is  most  extraordinary,  he  lives  not  upon  the  branches, 
but  under  them.    He  moves  suspended,  rests  suspended,  sleeps 


VI.]  COLLECTED   WORKS  187 

suspended,  and  passes  his  life  in  suspense  —  like  a  young 
clergyman  distantly  related  to  a  bishop. 

•  ••■••• 

"Just  before  his  third  journey,  Mr.  Waterton  takes  leave  of 
Sir  Joseph  Banks,^  and  speaks  of  him  with  affectionate  regret. 
'  I  saw  '  (says  Mr.  W.), '  with  sorrow,  that  death  was  going  to 
rob  us  of  him.  We  talked  of  stuffing  quadrupeds  ;  I  agreed 
that  the  lips  and  nose  ought  to  be  cut  off,  and  stuffed  with 
wax.'  This  is  the  way  great  naturalists  take  an  eternal 
farewell  of  each  other  I 

"  Insects  are  the  curse  of  tropical  climates.  The  bete  rouge 
lays  the  foundation  of  a  tremendous  ulcer.  In  a  moment  you 
are  covered  with  ticks.  Chigoes  bury  themselves  in  your 
flesh,  and  hatch  a  large  colony  of  young  chigoes  in  a  few  hours. 
They  will  not  live  together,  but  every  chigoe  sets  up  a  separate 
ulcer,  and  has  his  own  private  portion  of  pus.  Flies  get 
entry  into  your  mouth,  into  your  eyes,  into  your  nose ;  you 
eat  flies,  drink  flies,  and  breathe  flies.  Lizards,  cockroaches, 
and  snakes  get  into  the  bed  ;  ants  eat  up  the  books ;  scorpions 
sting  you  on  the  foot.  Every  thing  bites,  stings,  or  bi'uises ; 
every  second  of  your  existence  you  are  wounded  by  some 
piece  of  animal  life  that  nobody  has  ever  seen  before,  except 
Swammerdam  and  Meriam.  An  insect  with  eleven  legs  is 
swimming  in  your  teacup,  a  nondescript  with  nine  wings  is 
struggling  in  the  small  beer,  or  a  caterpillar  with  several 
dozen  eyes  in  his  belly  is  hastening  over  the  bread  and  butter  ! 
All  nature  is  alive,  and  seems  to  be  gathering  all  her  entomo- 
logical hosts  to  eat  you  up,  as  you  are  standing,  out  of  your 
coat,  waistcoat,  and  breeches.  Such  are  the  tropics.  All  this 
reconciles  us  to  our  dews,  fogs,  vapours,  and  drizzle  —  to  our 
apothecaries  rushing  about  with  gargles  and  tinctures — to 
our  old,  British,  constitutional  coughs,  sore  throats,  and 
swelled  faces." 

Space  slionld  be  found,  in  even  the  shortest  book  on 
Sydney  Smith,  for   two  passages  in  which,  perhaps 

1  (1743-1820). 


188  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

more  effectively  than  anywhere  else,  he  clinched  an 
argument  with  a  masterpiece  of  fun.  The  first  is  the 
warning  to  the  United  States  against  the  love  of 
military  glory.  The  second  is  the  wonderful  concate- 
nation of  fallacies  in  "  Noodle's  Oration."  ^  Both  these 
pieces  will  be  found  in  Appendix  B. 
In  1840  he  wrote  to  a  friend :  — 

"  I  printed  my  reviews  to  show,  if  I  could,  that  I  had  not 
passed  my  life  merely  in  making  jokes ;  but  that  I  had  made 
use  of  what  little  powers  of  pleasantry  I  might  be  endowed 
with,  to  discountenance  bad,  and  to  encourage  liberal  and 
wise,  principles." 

The  natural  and  becoming  indolence  of  age  was  now 
beginning  to  show  itself  in  Sydney  Smith.  He  had 
worked  harder  than  most  men  in  his  day,  and  now  he 
wisely  cultivated  ease.  In  his  comfortable  house  in 
Green  Street,  he  received  his  friends  with  what  he 
himself  so  excellently  called  "  that  honest  joy  which 
warms  more  than  dinner  or  wine  " ;  but  he  went  less 
than  of  old  into  general  society.  Least  of  all  was  he 
inclined  to  that  most  melancholy  of  all  exertions  which 

1  It  is  possible  that  the  argument  about  the  Wisdom  of  our 
Ancestors  in  "Noodle's  Oration"  may  have  been  suggested  by 
the  following  extract  from  the  Parliamentary  Debates  for  May 
26,  1797.  On  Mr.  Grey's  Motion  for  a  Reform  of  Parliament, 
Sir  Gregory  Page-Turner,  M.P.,  spoke  as  follows: — "He  craved 
the  indulgence  of  the  House  for  a  few  observations  which  he 
had  to  make.  When  he  got  up  in  the  morning  and  when  he 
lay  down  at  night,  he  always  felt  for  the  Constitution.  On 
this  question  he  had  never  had  but  one  opinion.  When  he 
came  first  into  Parliament,  he  remembered  that  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  proposed  a  Reform,  but  he  saw  it  was  wrong, 
and  he  opposed  it.  Would  it  not  be  madness  to  change  what 
had  been  handed,  sound  and  entire,  down  from  the  days  of  their 
fathers?" 


VI.]  COLLECTED   WORKS  189 

consists  in  rushing  about  to  entertainments  which  do 
not  amuse.  In  1840  he  wrote,  in  answering  an  invita- 
tion to  the  Opera  :  — 

"  Thy  servant  is  threescore-and-ten  years  old  ;  can  he  hear 
the  sound  of  singing  men  and  singing  women?  A  Canon 
at  the  Opera !  Where  have  you  lived  ?  In  what  habitations 
of  the  heathen?    I  thank  you,  shuddering." 

Although  the  Canon  would  not  go  to  the  Opera,  his 
general  faculty  of  enjoyment  was  unimpaired,  and,  as 
always,  he  loved  a  gibe  at  the  clergy.  On  the  30th 
of  November  1841,  Samuel  Wilberforce  wrote  to  a 
friend  about  George  Augustus  Selwyn,^  Missionary 
Bishop  of  New  Zealand :  — 

"  Selwyn  is  just  setting  out.  Sydney  Smith  says  it  will 
make  quite  a  revolution  in  the  dinners  of  New  Zealand. 
Tete  d'Eveqite  will  be  the  most  recherche  dish,  and  the  ser- 
vant will  add,  '  And  there  is  cold  clergyman  on  the  side- 
table.'  " 

But  this  is  Sydney's  own  version  of  the  joke :  — 

"  The  advice  I  sent  to  the  Bishop  of  New  Zealand,  when  he 
had  to  receive  the  cannibal  chiefs  there,  was  to  say  to  them, 
'  I  deeply  regret,  sirs,  to  have  nothing  on  my  own  table  suited 
to  your  tastes,  but  you  will  find  plenty  of  cold  curate  and 
roasted  clergyman  on  the  sideboard ' ;  and  if,  in  spite  of  this 
prudent  provision,  his  visitors  should  end  their  repast  by  eat- 
ing him  likewise,  why  I  could  only  add,  '  I  sincerely  hoped 
he  would  disagree  with  them.'  " 

In  spite  of  increasing  years  and  decreasing  health 
—  "I  have,"  he  said,  " seven  distinct  diseases,  but  am 
otherwise  pretty  well " — the  indefatigable  pamphleteer 
had  not  yet  done  with  controversy.  In  1842  he 
published  three  Letters  on  the  Mismanagement  of 

1(1809-1878). 


190  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

Railways/  and  in  1843  two  on  a  tendency  displayed 
by  the  "drab-coloured  men  of  Pennsylvania"  to  re- 
pudiate the  interest  on  their  State's  bonds.  On  the 
18th  of  December  1843  he  wrote  :  — 

"  INIy  bomb  has  fallen  very  successfully  in  America,  and 
the  list  of  killed  and  wounded  is  extensive.  I  have  several 
quires  of  paper  sent  me  every  day,  calling  me  monster,  thief, 
atheist,  deist,  etc." 

"  I  receive  presents  of  cheese  and  apples  from  Americans 
who  are  advocates  for  paying  debts,  and  very  abusive  letters 
in  print  and  in  manuscript  from  those  who  are  not." 

All  this  time,  in  spite  of  continual  discomfort  from 
gout  and  asthma,  he  kept  up  his  merry  interest  in  his 
friends'  concerns,  his  enjoyment  of  good  company, 
and  his  kindness  to  young  people.  Here  is  a  charm- 
ing letter,  written  in  September  1843  to  his  special 
favourite,  Miss  Georgiana  Harcourt/  daughter  of  the 
Archbishop  of  York :  — 

"I  suppose  you  will  soon  be  at  Bishopthorpe,  surrounded 
by  the  Sons  of  the  Prophets.  AVhat  a  charming  existence, 
to  live  in  the  midst  of  holy  people ;  to  know  that  nothing 
profane  can  approach  you ;  to  be  certain  that  a  Dissenter  can 
no  more  be  found  in  the  Palace  than  a  snake  in  Ireland,  or 
ripe  fruit  in  Scotland ;  to  have  your  society  strong,  and 
undiluted  by  the  laity;  to  bid  adieu  to  human  learning, 
to  feast  on  the  Canons,  and  revel  in  the  xxxix.  Articles. 
Happy  Georgiana  I " 

At  the  beginning  of  1844  he  wrote,  "I  am  toler- 
ably well,  but  intolerably  old."  He  complained  of 
"nothing  but  weakness,  and  loss  of  nervous  energy." 
"  I  look  as  strong  as  a  cart-horse,  but  cannot  get  round 
the  garden  without  resting  once  or  twice."     Soon  he 

1  In  these  a  special  appeal  is  made  to  "  our  youthful  Gladstone," 
then  recently  appointed  Vice-President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 

2  Afterwards  Mrs.  Malcolm :  died  in  1886. 


VI.]  COLLECTED   WORKS  191 

was  back  again  at  St.  Paul's,  preaching  a  sermon  on 
Peace,  and  rebuking  the  "excessive  proneness  to 
War."  "  I  shall  try  the  same  subject  again  —  a  subject 
utterly  untouched  by  the  clergy."  ^  The  summer 
passed  in  its  usual  occupations,  and  on  the  28th  of 
July  he  preached  for  the  last  time  in  the  pulpit 
of  the  Cathedral.  His  subject  was  the  right  use  of 
Sunday;  and  the  sermon  was  a  strong  protest  against 
the  increasing  secularization  of  the  holy  day.  The 
best  ways  of  employing  Sunday,  he  said,  were  Worship, 
Self -Examination,  and  Preparation  for  Death.  The 
sermon  ended  with  some  words  which  indicate  the 
sense  of  impending  change :  — 

"  I  never  take  leave  of  any  one,  for  any  length  of  time, 
without  a  deep  impression  upon  my  mind  of  the  uncertainty 
of  human  life,  and  the  probability  that  we  may  meet  no 
more  in  this  world."  ^ 

He  now  left  London  for  Combe  Florey.  "I  dine 
with  the  rich  in  London,  and  physic  the  poor  in  the 
country ;  passing  from  the  sauces  of  Dives  to  the  sores 
of  Lazarus."  His  bodily  discomforts  increased,  but  his 
love  of  fun  never  diminished.  He  wrote  as  merrily  as 
ever  to  Miss  Harcourt :  — 

"  Neither  of  us,  dear  Georgiana,  would  consent  to  survive 
the  ruin  of  the  Church.     You  would  plunge  a  poisoned  pin 

1  He  said  afterwards  that  this  Sermon  on  Peace  was  really 
Channing's. 

2  Compare  his  letter  on  parting  from  his  friends  at  Edin- 
burgh, quoted  by  Lady  Holland:  —  "All  adieus  are  melancholy; 
and  principally,  I  believe,  because  they  put  us  in  mind  of  tho 
last  of  all  adieus,  when  the  apothecary,  and  the  heir-apparent, 
and  the  nurse  who  weeps  for  pay,  surround  the  bed ;  when  the 
curate,  engaged  to  dine  three  miles  off,  mumbles  hasty  prayers; 
when  the  dim  eye  closes  for  ever  in  the  midst  of  empty  iiill-boxes, 
gallipots,  phials,  and  jugs  of  barley-water." 


192  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap.  vi. 

into  your  heart,  and  I  should  swallow  the  leaf  of  a  sermon 
dipped  in  hydro-cyanic  acid." 

In  October,  after  an  alarming  attack  of  breatliless- 
ness  and  giddiness,  he  returned  to  London.  In  Green 
Street  he  was  happy  in  the  proximity  and  skill  of  his 
son-in-law,  Dr.  Holland,  and  ''  a  suite  of  rooms  perfectly 
fitted  up  for  illness  and  death."  This  phrase  occurs 
in  the  last  of  his  published  letters,  dated  the  7th  of 
November  1844.  It  was  now  pronounced  that  his 
disease  was  water  on  the  chest,  caused  by  an  un- 
suspected affection  of  the  heart.  He  was  entirely 
confined  to  his  bed,  perfectly  aware  of  his  condition, 
and  keenly  grateful  for  the  kindness  and  sympathy  of 
friends.     His  daughter  writes :  — 

"  My  father  died  at  peace  with  himself  and  with  all 
the  world ;  anxious,  to  the  last,  to  promote  the  comfort 
and  happiness  of  others.  He  sent  messages  of  kindness 
and  forgiveness  to  the  few  he  thought  had  injured  him. 
Almost  his  last  act  was,  bestowing  a  small  living  of 
£120  per  annum  on  a  poor,  worthy,  and  friendless 
clergyman,  who  had  lived  a  long  life  of  struggle  with 
poverty  on  £40  per  annum.  Full  of  happiness  and 
gratitude,  the  clergyman  entreated  he  might  be  allowed 
to  see  my  father ;  but  the  latter  so  dreaded  any  agita- 
tion that  he  most  unwillingly  consented,  saying, '  Then 
he  must  not  thank  me ;  I  am  too  weak  to  bear  it.'  He 
entered,  —  my  father  gave  him  a  few  words  of  advice, 
—  the  clergyman  silently  pressed  his  hand,  and  blessed 
his  death-bed.  Surely  such  blessings  are  not  given 
in  vain ! " 

Sydney  Smith  died  on  the  22nd  of  February  1845, 
and  was  buried  by  the  side  of  his  son  Douglas  in  the 
Cemetery  at  Kensal  Green. 


CHAPTER  VII 

CHARACTERISTICS  —  HUMOUR  —  POLITICS —  CULTURE  — 
THEORIES    OF    LIFE RELIGION 

What  Sydney  Smith  was  to  the  outward  eye  we 
know  from  an  admirable  portrait  by  Eddis^  belong- 
ing to  his  grand-daughter,  Miss  Caroline  Holland. 
He  had  a  long  and  slightly  aquiline  nose,  of  the  type 
which  gives  a  peculiar  trenchaucy  to  the  countenance ; 
a  strongly  developed  chin,  thick  white  hair,^  and  black 
eyebrows.  His  complexion  was  fresh,  inclining  to  be 
florid.  In  figure  he  was,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  "  of 
the  family  of  Falstaff."  Ticknor  described  him  as 
''corpulent  but  not  gross."  Macaulay  spoke  of  his 
"  rector-like  amplitude  and  rubicundity."  He  was  of 
middle  height,  rather  above  it  than  below,  and  sturdily 
built.  He  used  to  quote  a  saying  from  one  of  his  con- 
temporaries at  Oxford  —  "  Sydney,  your  sense,  wit,  and 
clumsiness  always  give  me  the  idea  of  an  Athenian 
carter.'^  Except  on  ceremonious  occasions,  he  was 
careless  about  his  dress.  His  daughter  says  :  —  "  His 
neckcloth  always  looked  like  a  pudding  tied  round 
his  throat,  and  the  arrangement  of  his  garments 
seemed  more  the  result  of  accident  than  design." 

1  Eden  Upton  Eddis  (1812-1901). 

2  Miss  Holland  writes  —  "  His  hair,  when  I  knew  him,  was  beau- 
tifullj'  fine,  silvery,  and  abundant ;  rather  taill^  en  brosse,  like  a 
Frenchman's." 

o  193 


194  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

His  manner  in  society  was  cordial,  unrestrained, 
and  even  boisterous.  "  I  live,"  he  said  in  an  admira- 
ble figure,  "  with  open  doors  and  windows."  His  poor 
parishioners  regarded  him  with  "a  curious  mixture 
of  reverence  and  grin."  ^  His  daughter  says  that,  "on 
entering  the  pulpit,  the  calm  dignity  of  his  eye,  mien, 
and  voice,  made  one  feel  that  he  was  indeed,  and  felt 
himself  to  be,  '  the  pastor  standing  between  our  God 
and  His  people,'  to  teach  His  laws,  to  declare  His 
judgments,  and  proclaim  His  mercies." 

Enough  has  been  quoted  from  his  writings  to  give 
the  reader  a  clear  notion  of  his  style.  In  early  life 
it  was  not  scrupulously  correct,-  and  to  the  end  it  was 
marked  here  and  there  by  an  archaism  such  as  "  I 
have  strove,"  and  "  they  are  rode  over."  It  was 
singularly  uninvolved  and  uncomplicated,  and  was 
animated,  natural,  and  vigorous  in  the  highest  degree. 
As  years  went  on,  it  gained  both  in  ease  and  in  accu- 
racy, but  never  lost  either  its  force  or  its  resonance. 
It  ran  up  and  down  the  whole  gamut  of  the  English 
tongue,  from  sesquipedalian  classicisms  (which  he  gen- 
erally used  to  heighten  a  comic  effect)  to  one-syllabled 
words  of  the  homeliest  Anglo-Saxon.  His  punctuation 
was  careless,  and  the  impression  produced  by  his  writ- 
ten composition  is  that  of  a  man  who  wrote  exactly  as 
he  spoke,  without  pause,  premeditation,  or  amendment ; 
who  was  possessed  by  the  subject  on  which  he  was 
writing,  and  never  laid  down  the  pen  till  that  subject 
lived  and  breathed  in  the  written  page.^    Here  and 

1  Lord  Houghton. 

2  A  hostile  reviewer  of  his  Sermons  quotes  from  them  such 
phrases  as  —  "Lays  hid,"  "Has  sprang,"  "Has  drank,"  "Rarely 
or  ever."  s  See  p.  90. 


vii.]  HUMOUR  195 

there,  indeed,  it  is  easy  to  note  an  iinusual  care  and 
elaboration  in  the  structure  of  the  sentences  and  the 
cadence  of  the  sound,  and  then  the  style  rises  to  a 
very  high  level  of  rhetorical  dignity. 

Enough  too  has  been  quoted,  both  from  his  writings 
and  from  his  conversation,  to  illustrate  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  his  humour.  It  bubbled  up  in  him  by  a 
spontaneous  process,  and  flowed  over  into  whatever  he 
wrote  or  said.  Macaulay  described  his  "  rapid,  loud, 
laughing  utterance,"  and  adds  —  "  Sydney  talks  from 
the  impulse  of  the  moment,  and  his  fun  is  quite  inex- 
haustible." He  was,  I  think,  the  greatest  humomist 
whose  jokes  have  come  down  to  us  in  an  authentic  and 
unmutilated  form.  Almost  alone  among  professional 
jokers,  he  made  his  merriment  —  rich,  natural,  fantas- 
tic, unbridled  as  it  was  —  subserve  the  serious  purposes 
of  his  life  and  writing.  Each  joke  was  a  link  in  an 
argument ;  each  sarcasm  was  a  moral  lesson.  Peter 
Plymley,  and  the  Letters  to  Archdeacon  Singleton,  the 
essays  on  America  and  on  Persecuting  Bishops,  will 
probably  be  read  as  long  as  the  Tale  of  a  Tub  or 
Macaulay's  review  of  "  Satan  "  Montgomery ;  while 
of  detached  and  isolated  jokes  —  pure  freaks  of  fun 
clad  in  literary  garb  —  an  incredible  number,  current 
in  daily  converse,  deduce  their  birth  from  this  incom- 
parable clergyman.^  "In  ability,"  wrote  Macaulay 
in  1850,  "  I  should  say  that  Jeffrey  was  higher,  but 
Sydney  rarer.  I  would  rather  have  been  Jeffrey  ;  but 
there  will  be  several  Jeffreys  before  there  is  a  Sydney." 

It  would  of  course  be  absurd  to  pretend  that  all  his 

1 1  have  not  attempted  to  make  a  catalogue  of  these  jokes. 
Such  catalogues  will  be  found  in  the  previous  Memoirs  of  Sydney 
Smith,  and  in  Sir  Wemyss  Reid's  Life  of  Lord  Houghton. 


196  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

jokes  were  of  an  equally  high  order.  In  his  essays 
and  public  letters  he  is  always  and  supremely  good; 
in  his  private  letters  and  traditional  table-talk  he 
descends  to  the  level  of  his  correspondent  or  his  com- 
pany. Thus,  in  spite  of  his  own  protests  against 
playing  on  words,  he  found  his  clerk  "  a  man  of  great 
amen-ity  of  disposition."  He  complimented  his  friends 
Mrs.  Tighe  and  Mrs.  Cuffe  as  "the  cuff  that  every  one 
would  wear,  the  tie  that  no  one  would  loose."  His 
fondness  for  Lord  Grey's  family  led  him  to  call  him- 
self "  Grey-men-ivorous."  When  the  Hollands  were 
staying  with  him,  "  his  house  was  as  full  of  hollands 
as  a  ginshop."  He  nicknamed  Sir  George  Philips's 
home  near  Manchester  Philippi.  He  ascribed  his 
brother's  ugly  mansion  at  Cheam  to  "Chemosh,  the 
abomination  of  Moab."  In  1831  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  Mrs.  Meynell  that  "the  French  Government 
was  far  from  stable — like  Meynell's^  horses  at  the 
end  of  a  long  day's  chase."  When  a  lady  asked  him 
for  an  epitaph  on  her  pet  dog  Spot,  he  proposed  "  Out, 
damned  Spot ! "  but,  "  strange  to  say,  she  did  not  think 
it  sentimental  enough."  When  William  Cavendish,^ 
who  had  been  Second  Wrangler,  married  Lady  Blanche 
Howard,  Sydney  wrote  —  "Euclid  leads  Blanche  to 
the  altar  —  a  strange  choice  for  him,  as  she  has  not  an 
angle  about  her."  It  was  with  reference  to  this  kind 
of  pleasantry  that  he  said  :  — 

"  A  joke  goes  a  great  way  in  the  country.     I  have  known 
one  last  pretty  well  for  seven  years.     I  remember  making  a 

1  Hugo  Charles  Meynell-Ingram  (1784-1869) ,  of  Hoar  Cross  and 
Temple  Newsam. 

2  (1808-1891),  became  7th  Duke  of  Devonshire  iu  1858. 


VII.]  HUMOUR  197 

joke  after  a  meeting  of  the  clergy,  in  Yorkshire,  where  there 
was  a  Rev.  INIr.  Buckle,  who  never  spoke  when  I  gave  his 
health.  I  said  that  he  was  a  buckle  without  a  tongue.  Most 
persons  within  hearing  laughed,  but  my  next  neighbour  sat 
unmoved  and  sunk  in  thought.  At  last,  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
after  we  had  all  done,  he  suddenly  nudged  me,  exclaiming, 
'I  see  noic  what  you  meant,  Mr.  Smith;  you  meant  a  joke.' 
'Yes,'  I  said,  'sir;  I  believe  I  did.'  Upon  which  he  began 
laughing  so  heartily,  that  I  thought  he  would  choke,  and 
was  obliged  to  pat  him  on  the  back." 

A  graver  fault  than  this  boyish  love  of  punning 
is  the  undeniable  vein  of  coarseness  which  here  and 
there  disfigures  Sydney  Smith's  controversial  method. 
In  1810  he  wrote,  very  characteristically,  about  his 
friend  Lord  Grey  —  "His  deficiency  is  a  want  of 
executive  coarseness."  This  is  a  fault  with  which  he 
could  never  have  charged  himself.  His  own  "  execu- 
tive coarseness "  is  referable  in  part  to  the  social 
standard  of  the  day,  when  ladies  as  refined  as  the 

Miss    Berrys   "d d"   the   too-hot    tea-kettle,   and 

Canning  referred  to  a  political  opponent  as  "the 
revered  and  ruptured  Member."  In  a  similar  vein 
Sydney  jokes  incessantly  about  skin-disease  in  Scot- 
land ;  writes  of  a  neighbour  whose  manners  he  dis- 
liked that  "  she  was  as  cold  as  if  she  were  in  the  last 
stage  of  blue  cholera  "  ;  and,  after  his  farmers  had  been 
dining  with  him,  says  that  "  they  were  just  as  tipsy 
as  farmers  ought  to  be  when  dining  with  the  parson." 

When  he  came  to  dealing  publicly  with  a  political 
opponent,  he  seems  to  have  thought  that,  the  coarser 
were  his  illustrations,  the  more  domestic  and  personal 
his  allusions,  the  better  for  the  cause  which  he  served. 
The  Letters  of  Peter  Plymley  abound  in  medical  and 
obstetrical   imagery.      The   effect   of    the   Orders   in 


198  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

Council  on  the  health  of  Europe  supplies  endless  jokes. 
Peter  roars  with  laughter  at  the  thought  of  his  sister- 
in-law,  Mrs.  Abraham  Plymley,  "  led  away  captive  by 
an  amorous  Gaul."  Nothing  can  be  nastier  (or  more 
apt)  than  his  comparison  between  the  use  of  humour 
in  controversy  and  that  of  the  small-tooth  comb  in 
domestic  life ;  nothing  less  delicate  than  the  imaginary 
"  Suckling  Act "  in  which  he  burlesques  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury's Ten  Hours  Bill.  He  barbs  his  attacks  on  an 
oppressive  Government  by  jokes  about  the  ugliness  of 
Perceval's  face  and  the  poverty  of  Canning's  relations 
—  the  pensions  conferred  on  "  Sophia  "  and  "  Caroline," 
their  "  national  veal "  and  "  public  tea " ;  and  the 
"  clouds  of  cousins  arriving  by  the  waggon."  When  a 
bishop  has  insulted  him,  he  replies  with  an  insinuation 
that  the  bishop  obtained  his  preferment  by  fraud  and 
misrepresentation,^  and  jeers  at  him  for  having  begun 
life  as  a  nobleman's  Private  Tutor,  called  by  the 
"endearing  but  unmajestic  name  of  Dick."  It  is  only 
fair  to  say  that  these  aberrations  from  good  taste  and 
good  feeling  became  less  and  less  frequent  as  years 
went  on.  That  they  ever  were  permitted  to  deform  the 
splendid  advocacy  of  great  causes  is  due  to  the  fact 
that,  when  Sydney  Smith  began  to  write,  the  influ- 
ence of  Smollett  and  his  imitators  was  still  powerful. 
Burke's  obscene  diatribes  against  the  French  Revolu- 
tion were  still  quoted  and  admired.  Nobody  had  yet 
made  any  emphatic  protest  against  the  beastliness  of 
Swift  or  the  brutalities  of  Junius.^ 

1  This  insinuation  was  quite  unfounded. 

2  It  is  pleasant  to  cite  the  testimony  of  Lord  Houghton,  who 
assured  Mr.  Stuart  Reid  that  he  "  never  knew,  except  once,  Sydney 
Smith  to  make  a  jest  on  any  religious  subject;    and   then   he 


VII.]  POLITICS  199 

When  these  necessary  deductions  have  been  made, 
we  can  return  to  the  most  admiring  eulogy.  In  1835 
Sydney  wrote :  — 

"  Catch  me,  if  you  can,  in  any  one  illiberal  sentiment,  or  in 
any  opinion  which  I  have  need  to  recant;  and  that,  after 
twenty  years'  scribbling  upon  all  subjects."  , 

It  was  no  mean  boast,  and  it  was  absolutely  justified 
by  the  record.  From  first  to  last  he  was  the  convinced, 
eager,  and  devoted  friend  of  Freedom,  and  that  with- 
out distinction  of  place  or  race  or  colour.  He  would 
make  no  terms  with  a  man  who  temporized  about  the 
Slave-Trade.  — 

"  No  man  should  ever  hold  parley  with  it,  but  speak  of  it 
with  abhorrence,  as  the  greatest  of  all  human  abominations." 

The  toleration  of  Slavery  was  the  one  and  grave 
exception  to  his  unstinted  admiration  of  the  United 
States,  which  afforded,  in  his  opinion,  "the  most 
magnificent  picture  of  human  happiness  "  which  the 
world  had  ever  seen.  And  this  because  in  America, 
more  than  in  any  other  country,  each  citizen  was  free 
to  live  his  own  life,  manage  his  own  affairs,  and  work 
out  his  own  destiny,  under  the  protection  of  just  and 
equal  laws.  As  regards  political  institutions  in  Eng- 
land, he  seems  to  have  been  converted  rather  gradually 
to  the  belief  that  Reform  was  necessary.  In  1819  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Jeffrey :  — 

"  The  case  that  the  people  have  is  too  strong  to  be  resisted ; 
an  answer  may  be  made  to  it,  which  will  satisfy  enlightened 
people  perhaps,  but  none  that  the  mass  will  be  satisfied  with. 

immediately  withdrew  his  words  and  seemed  ashamed  that  he  had 
uttered  them," 


200  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

I  am  doubtful  whether  it  is  not  youi"  duty  and  my  duty  to 
become  moderate  Reformers,  to  keep  off  worse." 

In  1820  he  wrote :  —  "I  think  all  wise  men  should 
begin  to  turn  their  faces  Reform-wards."  In  1821  he 
writes  about  the  state  of  parties  in  the  House  of 
Commons :  — 

"  Of  all  ingenious  instruments  of  despotism,  I  most  com- 
mend a  popular  assembly  where  the  majority  are  paid  and 
hired,  and  a  few  bold  and  able  men,  by  their  brave  speeches, 
make  the  people  believe  they  are  free." 

And  then  again,  with  regard  to  religious  liberty, 
what  can  be  liner  than  his  protest  against  the  spirit 
of  persecution  ?  — 

"  I  admit  there  is  a  vast  luxury  in  selecting  a  particular  set 
of  Christians  and  in  worrying  them  as  a  boy  worries  a  puppy 
dog;  it  is  an  amusement  in  which  all  the  young  English  are 
brought  up  from  their  earliest  days.  I  like  the  idea  of  saying 
to  men  who  use  a  different  hassock  from  me,  that  till  they 
change  their  hassock,  they  shall  never  be  Colonels,  Aldermen, 
or  Parliament-men.  While  I  am  gratifying  my  personal 
insolence  respecting  religious  forms,  I  fondle  myself  into  an 
idea  that  I  am  religious,  and  that  I  am  doing  my  duty  in  the 
most  exemplary  (as  I  certainly  am  in  the  most  easy)  way." 

It  may  perhaps  be  dangerous  to  persecute  the  Roman 
Catholics  of  Ireland.  They  are  many,  they  are  spirited 
—  they  may  turn  round  and  hurt  us.  It  might  be 
wiser  to  try  our  hands  on  some  small  bod}''  like  the 
Evangelicals  of  Clapham  or  the  followers  of  William 
Wilberforce  (at  whom  in  passing  he  aims  a  Shandean 
sneer).  — 

"  We  will  gratify  the  love  of  insolence  and  power  :  we  will 
enjoy  the  old  orthodox  sport  of  witnessing  the  impotent  anger 
of  men  compelled  to  submit  to  civil  degradation,  or  to  sacrifice 
their  notions  of  truth  to  ours.    And  all  this  we  may  do  without 


VII.]  POLITICS  201 

the  slightest  risk,  because  their  numbers  are  (as  yet)  not  very- 
considerable.  Cruelty  and  injustice  must,  of  course,  exist : 
but  why  connect  them  with  danger  ?  Why  torture  a  bull-dog, 
when  you  can  get  a  frog  or  a  rabbit?  I  am  sure  my  proposal 
will  meet  with  the  most  universal  approbation.  Do  not  be 
apprehensive  of  any  opposition  from  Ministers.  If  it  is  a  case 
of  hatred,  we  are  sure  that  one  man  ^  will  defend  it  by  the 
Gospel :  if  it  abridges  human  freedom,  we  know  that  another  ^ 
will  find  precedents  for  it  in  the  Revolution." 

As  years  went  on,  he  was  sometimes  displeased 
by  the  doings  of  his  Liberal  friends,  but  he  was 
never  "  stricken  by  the  palsy  of  candour  " ;  he  never 
forsook  the  good  cause  for  which  he  had  fought  so 
steadily,  never  made  terms  with  political  deserters. 
After  the  Conservative  triumph  of  1841  he  wrote :  — 
^'  The  country  is  in  a  state  of  political  transition,  and 
the  shabby  are  preparing  their  consciences  and  opinions 
for  a  tack." 

But,  though  he  was  so  keen  and  so  consistent  a 
champion  of  civil  and  religious  freedom,  he  was  a 
sworn  foe  to  anarchy  and  licence.  Like  most  people 
who  had  seen  the  later  stages  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, he  had  a  holy  horror  of  mob-law  and  mob-justice. 
"  If  I  am  to  be  a  slave,"  he  said,  "  I  would  rather  be 
the  slave  of  a  king  than  of  a  rabble " ;  but  he  ve- 
hemently objected  to  being  the  slave  of  either.  He 
likened  Democracy  and  Despotism  to  the  "  two  tubes  of 
a  double-barrelled  pistol,"  which  menaced  the  life  of  the 
State.  "  The  democrats  are  as  much  to  be  kept  at  bay 
with  the  left  hand  as  the  Tories  are  with  the  right." 
"  A  thousand  years,"  he  wrote  in  1838,  "  have  scarce 
sufficed  to  make  our  blessed  England  what  it  is :  an 
hour  may  lay  it  in  the  dust." 

1  Spencer  Perceval.  2  Lord  Hawkesbury. 


202  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

After  the  riots  at  Bristol  in  1831,  consequent  on  the 
rejection  of  the  Reform  Bill,  he  strenuously  demanded 
stern  punishment  for  the  rioters.  He  wrote  to  the 
Prime  Minister :  — 

"  Pray  do  not  be  good-natured  about  Bristol.  I  must  have 
ten  people  hanged,  and  twenty  transported,  and  thirty  im- 
prisoned ;  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  give  the  multitude 
a  severe  blow,  for  their  conduct  at  Bristol  has  been  most 
atrocious.  You  will  save  lives  by  it  in  the  end.  There  is 
no  plea  of  want,  as  there  was  in  the  agricultural  riots." 

You  ivill  save  lives  by  it  in  the  end.  There  spoke  the 
truly  humanitarian  spirit  which  does  not  shrink  from 
drawing  the  sword  at  the  bidding  of  real  necessity, 
but  asks  itself  once  and  again  whether  any  proposed 
effusion  of  blood  is  really  demanded  by  the  exigencies 
of  the  moral  law. 

On  questions  of  peace  and  war,  Sydney  Smith  was 
always  on  the  right  side.^  He  saw  as  clearly  as  the 
most  clamorous  patriot  that  England  was  morally 
bound  to  defend  her  existence  and  her  freedom.  He 
exhorted  her  to  rally  all  her  forces  and  strive  with 
agonies  and  energies  against  the  anti-human  ambition 
of  Napoleon.  And,  when  once  the  great  deliverance 
was  achieved,  he  turned  again  to  the  enjoyment  and 
the  glorification  of  Peace.  — 

"  Let  fools  praise  conquerors,  and  say  the  great  Napoleon 
pulled  down  this  kingdom  and  destroyed  that  army  :  we  will 
thank  God  for  a  King  ^  who  has  derived  his  quiet  glory  from 
the  peace  of  his  realm." 

"  The  atrocities,  and  horrors,  and  disgusts  of  war  have  never 
been  half  enough  insisted  upon  by  the  teachers  of  the  people ; 
but  the  worst  of  evils  and  the  greatest  of  follies  have  been 

1  See  Appendix  E.  2  William  iv. 


vii.]  POLITICS  203 

varnished  over  with  specious  names,  and  the  gigantic  robbers 
and  murderers  of  the  world  liave  been  holden  up  for  imita- 
tion to  the  weak  eyes  of  youth." 

No  wars,  except  the  very  few  which  we  really 
required  for  national  self-defence,  could  attract  his 
sympathy.  Wars  of  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  other 
nations,  even  when  undertaken  for  excellent  objects, 
he  regarded  with  profound  mistrust. 

When,  in  1823,  the  nascent  liberties  of  Spain  were 
threatened,  he  wrote :  — 

"  I  am  afraid  we  shall  go  to  war ;  I  am  sorry  for  it.  I  see 
every  day  in  the  world  a  thousand  acts  of  oppression  which  I 
should  like  to  resent,  but  I  cannot  afford  to  play  the  Quixote. 
Why  are  the  English  to  be  the  sole  vindicators  of  the  human 
race  ?  " 

And  again :  — 

"  For  God's  sake,  do  not  drag  me  into  another  war !  I  am 
worn  down,  and  worn  out,  with  crusading  and  defending 
Europe,  and  protecting  mankind ;  I  must  think  a  little  of 
myself.  I  am  sorry  for  the  Spaniards  —  I  am  sorry  for  the 
Greeks  —  I  deplore  the  fate  of  the  Jews ;  the  people  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands  are  groaning  under  the  most  detestable 
tyranny;  Bagdad  is  oppressed  —  I  do  not  like  the  present 
state  of  the  Delta  —  Thibet  is  not  comfortable.  Am  I  to  fight 
for  all  these  people?  The  world  is  bursting  with  sin  and 
sorrow.  Am  I  to  be  champion  of  the  Decalogue,  and  to  be 
eternally  raising  fleets  and  armies  to  make  all  men  good  and 
happy?  We  have  just  done  saving  Europe,  and  I  am  afraid 
the  consequence  will  be,  that  we  shall  cut  each  other's 
throats." 

In  1830  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Lady  Holland  about 
her  son,^  afterwards  General  Fox :  — 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  see  Charles  in  the  Guards.     He  will 

1  Charles  Richard  Fox  (1796-1873). 


204  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

now  remain  at  home ;  for  I  trust  that  there  will  be  no  more 
embarkation  of  the  Guards  while  I  live,  and  that  a  captain 
of  the  Guards  will  be  as  ignorant  of  the  colour  of  blood  as  the 
rector  of  a  parish.  "We  have  had  important  events  enough 
within  the  last  twenty  years.  May  all  remaining  events  be 
culinary,  amorous,  literary,  or  any  thing  but  political !  " 

And  so  again,  according  to  Lord  Houghton,  he  said 
in  later  life  :  — 

"  I  have  spent  enough  and  fought  enough  for  other  nations. 
I  must  think  a  little  of  myself.  I  want  to  sit  under,  my  own 
bramble  and  sloe-tree  with  my  own  great-coat  and  umbrella." 

This  is  no  fatty  degeneration  of  the  chivalrous  spirit. 
It  is  merely  the  old  doctrine  of  Non-intervention  speak- 
ing in  a  lighter  tone. 

An  account  of  a  man's  personal  characteristics  must 
contain  some  estimate  of  his  aesthetic  sense.  This 
was  not  very  strongly  developed  in  Sydney  Smith. 
He  admired  the  beauties  of  a  smiling  landscape,  such 
as  he  saw  in  the  Vale  of  Taunton,  and  hated  grim- 
ness  and  barrenness  such  as  he  remembered  at  Harro- 
gate. "  I  thought  it  the  most  heaven-forgotten  country 
under  the  sun  when  I  saw  it ;  there  were  only  nine 
mangy  fir-trees  there,  and  even  they  all  leaned  away 
from  it."  He  enjoyed  bright  colours  and  sweet  scents, 
and  had  a  passion  for  light.  His  views  of  Art  were 
primitive.  We  have  seen  that  he  preferred  gas  to 
Correggio.  He  admired  West,^  and  did  not  admire 
Haydon.-  He  bought  pictures  for  the  better  decora- 
tion of  his  drawing-room,  and,  when  they  did  not  please 
him,  had  them  altered  to  suit  his  taste.  — 

"Look  at  that  sea-piece,  now;   what  would  you   desire 

1  Benjamin  West  (1738-1820). 

2  Benjamin  Robert  Haydon  (1786-1846). 


VII.]  CULTURE  205 

more?  It  is  true,  the  moon  in  the  corner  was  rather  divigy 
■uheu  I  first  bought  it ;  so  T  had  a  new  moon  put  in  for 
half-a-crown,  and  now  I  consider  it  perfect." 

This  perhaps  may  be  regarded  as  burlesque,  and 
so  may  his  sympathetic  remark  to  the  gushing  con- 
noisseur — 

"  I  got  into  dreadful  disgrace  with  him  once,  when,  stand- 
ing before  a  picture  at  Bow'ood,  lie  exclaimed,  turning  to  me, 
'  Immense  breadth  of  light  and  shade  ! '  I  innocently  said, 
'  Yes ;  —  about  an  inch  and  a  half.'  He  gave  me  a  look  that 
ought  to  have  killed  me." 


"&' 


But  his  gratitude  to  his  young  friend  Lady  Mary 
Bennet,  who  covered  the  walls  of  his  Rectory  with 
the  sweet  products  of  her  pencil,  is  only  too  palpably 
sincere.  It  may  perhaps  be  imputed  to  him  for  aesthetic 
virtue  that  he  considered  the  national  monuments  in 
St.  Paul's,  with  the  sole  exception  of  Dr.  Johnson's, 
"  a  disgusting  heap  of  trash."  It  is  less  satisfactory 
that  he  found  the  Prince  Regent's  "suite  of  golden 
rooms  "  at  Carlton  House  "  extremely  magnificent." 

To  music  he  was  more  sympathetic,  but  even  here  his 
sympathies  had  their  limitations.  Music  in  the  minor 
key  made  him  melancholy,  and  had  to  be  discontinued 
when  he  was  in  residence  at  St.  Paul's ; '  and  this  was 
not  his  only  musical  prejudice.  — 

"  Nothing  can  be  more  disgusting  than  an  oratorio.  How 
absurd  to  see  five  hundred  people  fiddling  like  madmen  about 
the  Israelites  in  the  Red  Sea !  " 

"  Yesterday  I  heard  Rubini  and  Grisi,  Lablache  and  Tam- 
burini.     The  opera,  by  Bellini,  /  Puritani,  was  dreadfully 

1 1  am  indebted  for  this  tradition  to  the  Rev.  H.  S.  Holland,  D.D., 
Canon  of  St.  Paul's. 


206  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

tiresome,  and  unintelligible  in  its  plan.     I  hope  it  is  the  last 
opera  I  shall  ever  go  to." 

"  Semiramis  would  be  to  me  pure  misery.  I  love  music 
very  little.  I  hate  acting.  I  have  the  worst  opinion  of 
Semiramis  herself,  and  the  whole  thing  seems  to  me  so  child- 
ish and  so  foolish  that  I  cannot  abide  it.  Moreover,  it  would 
be  rather  out  of  etiquette  for  a  Canon  of  St.  Paul's  to  go  to 
the  opera;  and,  where  etiquette  prevents  me  from  doing 
things  disagreeable  to  myself,  I  am  a  perfect  martinet." 

After  a  Musical  Festival  at  York  lie  writes  to  Lady 
Holland :  — 

"  I  did  not  go  once.  Music  for  such  a  length  of  time  (un- 
less under  sentence  of  a  jury)  I  will  not  submit  to.  What 
pleasure  is  there  in  pleasure,  if  quantity  is  not  attended  to, 
as  well  as  quality  ?  I  know  nothing  more  agreeable  than  a 
dinner  at  Holland  House ;  but  it  must  not  begin  at  ten  in 
the  morning,  and  last  till  six.  I  should  be  incapable  for  the 
last  four  hours  of  laughing  at  Lord  Holland's  jokes,  eating 
Raffaelle's  cakes,  or  repelling  Mr.  Allen's^  attack  upon  the 
Church." 

Yet,  in  spite  of  these  limitations,  he  took  lessons 
on  the  piano,  and  often  warbled  in  the  domestic  circle. 
In  1843  he  writes  —  ''I  am  learning  to  sing  some  of 
Moore's  songs,  which  I  think  I  shall  do  to  great  per- 
fection." His  daughter  says,  with  filial  piety,  that, 
when  he  had  once  learnt  a  song,  he  sang  it  very  cor- 
rectly, and,  "  having  a  really  fine  voice,  often  encored 
himself."  A  lady  who  visited  him  at  Combe  Florey 
corroborates  this  account,  saying  that  after  dinner  he 
said  to  his  wife,  "I  crave  for  Music,  Mrs.  Smith. 
Music  !  Music  !  "  and  sang,  "  with  his  rich  sweet  voice, 
A  Few  Gay  Soarings  Yet.'"     In  old  age  he  said  :  — 

"  If  I  were  to  begin  life  again,  I  would  devote  much  time 
1  John  Allen  was  nicknamed  "  Lady  Holland's  Atheist." 


VII.]  CULTURE  207 

to  music.  All  musical  people  seem  to  me  happy ;  it  is  the 
most  engrossing  pursuit ;  almost  the  only  innocent  and  un- 
punished passion." 

When  we  turn  from  the  aesthetic  to  the  literary- 
faculty,  we  find  it  a  good  deal  better  developed.  That 
he  was  a  sound  scholar  in  the  sense  of  being  able 
to  read  the  standard  classics  with  facility  and  enjoy- 
ment we  know  from  his  own  statements.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  Edinburgh  Revieio  he  perceived  and  ex- 
tolled the  fine  scholarship  of  Monk  ^  and  Blomfield^ 
and  Maltby.^  The  fact  that  Marsh*  was  a  man  of 
learning  mitigated  the  severity  of  the  attack  on 
"Persecuting  Bishops."  His  glowing  tribute  to  the 
accomplishments  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh  is  qualified 
by  the  remark  that  "  the  Greek  language  has  never 
crossed  the  Tweed  in  any  great  force."  In  brief,  he 
understood  and  respected  classical  scholarship.  He 
was  keenly  interested  in  English  literature,  and  kept 
abreast  of  what  was  produced  in  France  ;  but  German 
he  seems  to  have  regarded  as  a  kind  of  joke,  and  Italian 
he  only  mentions  as  part  of  a  young  lady's  education. 

In  1819  he  wrote  to  his  son  at  Westminster  :  — 

"  For  the  English  poets,  I  will  let  you  off  at  present  with 
Milton,  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Shakespeare;  and  remember, 
always  in  books,  keep  the  best  company.  Don't  read  a  line 
of  Ovid  till  you  have  mastered  Virgil ;  nor  a  line  of  Thom- 
son till  you  have  exhausted  Pope ;  nor  of  Massinger,  till 
you  are  familiar  with  Shakespeare." 

He  thought  Locke  "a  fine,  satisfactory  sort  of 
a  fellow,  but  very  long-winded  " ;  considered  Horace 
Walpole's  "  the  best  wit  ever  published  in  the  shape  of 

1  Bishop  of  Gloucester.  2  Bishop  of  London. 

3  Bishop  of  Durham.  •*  Bishop  of  Peterborough. 


208  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

letters  "  ;  and  dismissed  Madame  de  Sevigne  as  "  very 
much  over-praised."  Of  Montaigne  he  says  —  "  He 
thinks  aloud,  that  is  his  great  merit,  but  does  not 
think  remarkably  well.  Mankind  has  improved  in 
thinking  and  writing  since  that  period." 

It  was,  of  course,  part  of  his  regular  occupation  to 
deal  with  new  books  in  the  Edinburgh ;  and,  apart 
from  these  formal  reviews,  his  letters  are  full  of  curious 
comments.  In  1814  he  declines  to  read  the  Edinburgh's 
criticism  of  Wordsworth,  because  ''the  subject  is  to  me 
so  very  uninteresting."   In  the  same  year  he  writes :  — 

"  I  think  very  highly  of  Waverley,  and  was  inclined  to 
suspect,  in  reading  it,  that  it  was  written  by  Miss  Scott  of 
Ancrum." 

In  1818  he  wrote  about  Tlie  Heart  of  3£idIothian :  — 

"  I  think  it  excellent  —  quite  as  good  as  any  of  his  novels, 
excepting  that  in  which  Claverhouse  is  introduced,  and  of 
which  I  forget  the  name.  .  .  .  He  repeats  his  characters, 
but  it  seems  they  will  bear  repetition.  "Who  can  read  the 
novel  without  laughing  and  crying  twenty  times?  " 

In  1820 :  — 

"  Have  you  read  Ivanhoe  ?  It  is  the  least  dull,  and  the 
most  easily  read  tlirough,  of  all  Scott's  novels ;  but  there  are 
many  more  powerful." 

Later  in  the  same  year :  — 

"I  have  just  read  The  Abbot;  it  is  far  above  common 
novels,  but  of  very  inferior  execution  to  his  others,  and 
hardly  worth  reading.  He  has  exhausted  the  subject  of 
Scotland,  and  worn  out  the  few  characters  that  the  early 
periods  of  Scotch  history  could  supply  him  with.  Meg 
IMerrilies  appears  afresh  in  every  novel." 

In  1821 :  — 

"  The  Pirate  is  certainly  one  of  the  least  fortunate  of  Sir 


VII.]  CULTURE  209 

Walter's  productions.  It  seems  now  that  he  cannot  write 
without  Meg  Merrilies  and  Dominie  Sampson.  One  other 
such  novel,  and  tliere  's  an  end;  but  who  can  last  for  ever? 
who  ever  lasted  so  long?" 

In  1823 :  — 

"  Peveril  is  a  moderate  production,  between  his  best  and 
his  worst ;  rather  agreeable  than  not." 

His  judgment  on  TJie  Bride  of  Lammermoor  is  indeed 
deplorable.  He  thought  it  like  Scott's  previous  work, 
but  "  laboured  in  an  inferior  way,  and  more  careless, 
with  many  repetitions  of  himself.  Caleb  is  overdone. 
.  .  .     The  catastrophe  is  shocking  and  disgusting."  ^ 

Incidentally  we  find  him  praising  Lister's  Granhy, 
and  Hope's  Anastasius.  He  early  discovered  and 
consistently  admired  Macaulay,  though  he  drew  the 
line  at  the  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  on  the  ground  that 
he  "  abhorred  all  Grecian  and  Roman  subjects."  It  is 
curious  to  note  the  number  and  variety  of  new  books 
which  he  more  or  less  commends,  and  which  are  now 
equally  and  completely  forgotten.  As  we  come  nearer 
our  own  times,  however,  we  find  an  important  con- 
version.    In  1838  he  writes  :  — 

"  Nicldehy  is  very  good.  I  stood  out  against  Mr.  Dickens 
as  long  as  I  could,  but  he  has  conquered  me." 

In  1843  he  writes  to  Dickens :  — 

"  Pecksniff  and  his  daughters,  and  Pinch,  are  admirable 
—  quite  first-rate  painting,  such  as  no  one  but  yourself  can 
execute.  Chuffey  is  admirable.  I  never  read  a  finer  piece 
of  writing." 

And,  when  Dickens  asks  him  to  dinner,  he  replies :  — 
"  I  accept  your  obliging  invitation  conditionally.     If  I  am 

1  Quoted  by  IMr.  Stuart  Reid. 


210  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

invited  by  any  man  of  greater  genius  than  yourself,  or  one 
by  whose  works  I  have  been  more  completely  interested,  I 
will  repudiate  you,  and  dine  with  the  more  splendid  phe- 
nomenon of  the  two." 

His  crowning  glory  in  the  matter  of  literary  criticism 
is  that,  as  Euskin  told  us,  he  was  the  first  man  in  the 
literary  circles  of  London  to  assert  the  value  of  Modern 
Painters.  "  He  said  it  was  a  work  of  transcendent 
talent,  presented  the  most  original  views  in  the  most 
elegant  and  powerful  language,  and  would  work  a 
complete  revolution  in  the  world  of  taste."  ^ 

With  the  physical  sciences  Sydney  Smith  seems  to 
have  had  no  real  acquaintance,  unless  we  include  among 
them  the  art  of  the  apothecary,  which  all  through  life  he 
studied  diligently  and  practised  courageously.  But  he 
recommended  Botany,  with  some  confidence,  as  "  certain 
to  delight  little  girls " ;  and  his  friendship  with  the 
amiable  and  instructive  Mrs.  Marcet^  gave  him  a 
smattering  of  scientific  terms.  In  a  discussion  on  the 
Inferno  he  invented  a  new  torment  especially  for  that 
excellent  lady's  benefit.  — 

"  You  should  be  doomed  to  listen,  for  a  thousand  years,  to 
conversations  between  Caroline  and  Emily,  where  Caroline 
should  always  give  wrong  explanations  in  chemistry,  and 
Emily  in  the  end  be  unable  to  distinguish  an  acid  from  an 
alkali." 

When  we  turn,  from  these  smaller  matters  of  taste 
and  accomplishment,  to  the  general  view  of  life, 
Sydney  Smith  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  have 
been  a  Utilitarian ;    and    yet    he    declared  himself 

1  Prxterita,  vol.  ii.  chap.  ix. 

2  Jane  Marcet  (1769-1858),  authoress  of  Conversations  on 
Chemistry . 


vn.]  THEORIES   OF   LIFE  211 

in   vigorous   terms   an   opponent   of    the    Utilitarian 
School.  — 

"  That  school  treat  mankind  as  if  theywere  mere  machines ; 
the  feelings  or  affections  never  enter  into  their  calculations. 
If  everything  is  to  be  sacrificed  to  utility,  why  do  you  bury 
your  grandmother  ?  why  don't  you  cut  her  into  small  pieces 
at  once,  and  make  portable  soup  of  her  ?  " 

In  a  similar  vein,  he  said  of  his  friend  George  Grote 
that  he  would  have  been  an  important  politician  if  the 
world  had  been  a  chess-board.  Any  system,  social, 
political,  or  philosophical,  which  did  not  directly  con- 
cern itself  with  the  wants  and  feelings  and  impulses  of 
human  flesh  and  blood,  appealed  to  him  in  vain. 

"How  foolish,"  he  wrote, "  and  how  profligate,  to  show  that 
the  principle  of  general  utility  has  no  foundation,  that  it  is 
often  opposed  to  the  interests  of  the  individual !  If  this  be 
true,  there  is  an  end  of  all  reasoning  and  all  morals :  and  if 
any  man  asks.  Why  am  I  to  do  what  is  generally  useful  ?  he 
should  not  be  reasoned  with,  but  called  rogue,  rascal,  etc.,  and 
the  mob  should  be  excited  to  break  his  windows." 

He  liked  what  he  called  "useful  truth."  He  could 
make  no  terms  with  thinkers  who  were  "  more  fond 
of  disputing  on  mind  and  matter  than  on  anything 
which  can  have  a  reference  to  the  real  world,  inhabited 
by  real  men,  women,  and  children."  Indeed,  all  his 
thinking  was  governed  by  his  eager  and  generous 
humanitarianism.  He  thought  all  speculation,  w^hich 
did  not  bear  directly  on  the  welfare  and  happiness 
of  human  beings,  a  waste  of  ingenuity ;  and  yet,  at 
the  same  time,  he  taught  that  all  practical  systems, 
which  left  out  of  account  the  emotional  and  sentimental 
side  of  man,  were  incomplete  and  ineffectual.  This 
higher  side  of  his  nature  showed  itself  in  his  lively 


212  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

affections,  his  intense  love  of  home  and  wife  and 
children,  his  lifelong  tenacity  of  friendship,  and  his 
overflowing  sympathy  for  the  poor,  the  abject,  and 
the  suffering. 

"The  haunts  of  Happiness,"  he  wrote,  "are  varied,  and 
rather  unaccountable  ;  but  I  have  more  often  seen  her  among 
little  children,  and  by  home  firesides,  and  in  country  houses, 
thau  anywhere  else,  —  at  least,  I  think  so." 

AVhen  his  mother  died,  he  wrote  —  "  Everyone  mnst 
go  to  his  grave  with  his  heart  scarred  like  a  soldier's 
body,"  and,  when  he  lost  his  infant  boy,  he  said  — 
"  Children  are  horribly  insecure :  the  life  of  a  parent  is 
the  life  of  a  gambler." 

His  more  material  side  was  well  exhibited  by  the 
catalogue  of  "  Modern  Changes "  which  he  compiled 
in  old  age,  heading  it  with  the  characteristic  couplet :  — 

"  The  good  of  ancient  times  let  others  state, 
I  think  it  lucky  I  was  born  so  late."  i 

It  concludes  with  the  words,  ''Even  in  the  best  society 

one  third  of  the  gentlemen  at  least  were  always  drunk." 

This  reminds  us  that,  in  the  matter  of  temperance, 

Sydney  Smith  was  far  in  advance  of  his  time.     That 

he  was  no 

"  budge  doctor  of  the  Stoic  fur, 
Praising  the  lean  and  sallow  Abstinence," 

is  plain  enough  from  his  correspondence.  "  The  wretch- 
edness of  human  life,"  he  wrote  in  1817,  "  is  only  to  be 
encountered  upon  the  basis  of  meat  and  wine  "  ;  but  he 
had  a  curiously  keen  sense  of  the  evils  induced  by 
*'  the  sweet  poyson."  ^  As  early  as  1814  he  urged  Lord 
Holland   to   ''leave   off   wine   entirely,"   for,   though 

1  See  Appendix  C.  2  Corrnis. 


VII.]  THEORIES  OF  LIFE  213 

never  guilty  of  excess,  Holland  showed  a  "  respectable 
and  dangerous  plenitude."  After  a  visit  to  London 
in  the  same  year,  Sydney  wrote :  — 

"  I  liked  London  better  than  ever  I  liked  it  before,  and 
simply,  I  believe,  from  water-drinking.  Without  this,  London 
is  stupefaction  and  inflammation.  It  is  not  the  love  of  wine, 
but  thoughtlessness  and  unconscious  imitation :  other  men 
poke  out  their  hands  for  the  revolving  wine,  and  one  does  the 
same,  without  thinking  of  it.  All  people  above  the  condition 
of  labourers  are  ruined  by  excess  of  stimulus  and  nourishment, 
clergy  included.  I  never  yet  saw  any  gentleman  who  ate  and 
drank  as  little  as  was  reasonable." 

In  1828  he  wrote  to  Lady  Holland  (of  Holland 
House)  :  — 

"  I  not  only  was  never  better,  but  never  half  so  well :  in- 
deed I  find  I  have  been  very  ill  all  my  life,  without  knowing 
it.  Let  me  state  some  of  the  goods  arising  from  abstaining 
from  all  fermented  liquors.  First,  sweet  sleep  ;  having  never 
known  what  sweet  sleep  was,  I  sleep  like  a  baby  or  a  plough- 
boy.  If  I  wake,  no  needless  terrors,  no  black  visions  of  life, 
but  pleasing  hopes  and  pleasing  recollections :  Holland  House, 
past  and  to  come!  If  I  dream,  it  is  not  of  lions  and  tigers, 
but  of  Easter  dues  and  tithes.  Secondly,  I  can  take  longer 
walks,  and  make  greater  exertions,  without  fatigue.  My 
understanding  is  improved,  and  I  comprehend  Political 
Economy.  Only  one  evil  ensues  from  it:  I  am  in  such 
extravagant  spirits  that  I  must  look  out  for  some  one  who 
will  bore  and  depress  me." 

In  1834  he  wrote  :  — 

"  I  am  better  in  health,  avoiding  all  fermented  liquors,  and 
drinking  nothing  but  London  water,  with  a  million  insects  in 
every  drop.  He  who  drinks  a  tumbler  of  London  water  has 
literally  in  his  stomach  more  animated  beings  than  there  are 
men,  women,  and  children  on  the  face  of  the  globe." 

In  spite  of  this  disquieting  analysis  he  persevered, 
and  wrote  two  years  later :  — 


214  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

"  I  have  had  no  gout,  nor  any  symptom  of  it :  by  eating 
little,  and  drinking  only  water,  I  keep  body  and  mind  in  a 
serene  state,  and  spare  the  great  toe.  Looking  back  at  my 
past  life,  I  find  that  all  my  miseries  of  body  and  mind  have 
proceeded  from  indigestion.  Young  people  in  early  life  should 
be  thoroughly  taught  the  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical 
evils  of  indigestion." 

Saba,  Lady  Holland,  who  had  a  discreet  but  pro- 
voking trick  of  omitting  the  proper  name  wherever  we 
specially  thirst  to  know  it,  thus  reports  her  father's 
conversation :  — 

"  Now,  I  mean  not  to  drink  one  drop  of  wine  to-day,  and 
I  shall  be  mad  with  spirits.  I  always  am  when  I  drink  no 
wine.  It  is  curious  the  effect  a  thimbleful  of  wine  has  upon 
me ;  I  feel  as  flat  as 's  jokes ;  it  destroys  my  understand- 
ing :  I  forget  the  number  of  the  Muses,  and  think  them  xxxix, 
of  course ;  and  only  get  myself  right  again  by  repeating  the 
lines,  and  finding  '  Descend,  ye  Thirty-Nine  1 '  two  feet  too 
long." 

All  this  profound  interest  in  the  matter  of  food  and 
drink  was  closely  connected  in  Sydney  Smith  with  a 
clear  sense  of  the  influence  exercised  by  the  body  over 
the  soul.  — 

"  I  am  convinced  digestion  is  the  great  secret  of  life ;  and 
that  character,  talents,  virtues,  and  qualities  are  powerfully 
affected  by  beef,  mutton,  pie-crust,  and  rich  soups.  I  have 
often  thought  I  could  feed  or  starve  men  into  many  virtues 
and  vices,  and  affect  them  more  powerfully  with  my  instru- 
ments of  cookery  than  Timotheus  could  do  formerly  with  his 
lyre."i 

According  to  his  own  accounts  of  himself  he  seems, 
like  most  people  who  are  boisterously  cheerful,  to 
have  had  occasional  tendencies  to  melancholy.     "  An 

1  See  Appendix  D. 


VII.]  THEORIES  OF  LIFE  215 

extreme  depression  of  spirits,"  he  writes  in  1826,  ''  is 
an  evil  of  which  I  have  a  full  comprehension."  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  writes :  — 

"  I  thank  God,  who  has  made  me  poor,  that  He  has  made 
me  merry.  I  think  it  a  better  gift  than  much  wheat  and 
beau-land,  with  a  doleful  heart." 

"My  constitutional  gaiety  comes  to  my  aid  in  all  the 
difficulties  of  life ;  and  the  recollection  that,  having  em- 
braced the  character  of  an  honest  man  and  a  friend  to 
rational  liberty,  I  have  no  business  to  repine  at  that  medioc- 
rity of  fortune  which  I  knew  to  be  its  consequence." 

The  truth  would  seem  to  be  that,  finding,  in  his 
temperament  and  circumstances,  some  predisposing 
causes  of  melancholy,  he  refused  to  sit  down  under 
the  curse  and  let  it  poison  his  life,  but  took  vigor- 
ous measures  with  himself  and  his  surroundings ;  culti- 
vated cheerfulness  as  a  duty,  and  repelled  gloom  as 
a  disease.  He  "tried  always  to  live  in  the  Present 
and  the  Future,  and  to  look  upon  the  Past  as  so  much 
dirty  linen."  After  reading  Burke,  and  praising  his 
"  beautiful  and  fruitful  imagination,"  he  says  — 
"With  the  politics  of  so  remote  a  period  I  do  not 
concern  myself."  He  had  a  robust  confidence  in  the 
cheering  virtues  of  air  and  exercise,  early  hours  and  cold 
water,  light  and  warmth,  temperance  in  tea  and  coffee 
as  well  as  wine  —  "  Apothegms  of  old  women,"  as  he 
truly  said,  but  tested  by  universal  experience  and  found 
efficacious.  He  recommended  constant  occupation, 
combined  with  variety  of  interests,  and  taught  that 
nothing  made  one  feel  so  happy  as  the  act  of  doing 
good.  He  thus  describes  his  own  experience,  when, 
as  Canon  of  St.  Paul's,  he  had  presented  a  valuable 
living  to  the  friendless  son  of  the  deceased  incum- 


216  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

bent.     He  announced  the  presentation  to  the  stricken 
family.  — 

"  They  all  burst  into  tears.  It  flung  me  also  into  a  great 
agitation,  and  I  wept  and  groaned  for  a  long  time.  Then  I 
rose,  and  said  I  thought  it  was  very  likely  to  end  in  tlieir 
keeping  a  buggy,  at  which  we  all  laughed  as  violently.  The 
poor  old  lady,  who  was  sleeping  in  a  garret  because  she  could 
not  bear  to  enter  into  the  room  lately  inhabited  by  her  hus- 
band, sent  for  me  and  kissed  me,  sobbing  with  a  thousand 
emotions.  The  charitable  physician  wept  too.  ...  I  never 
passed  so  remarkable  a  morning,  nor  was  more  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  sufferings  of  human  life,  and  never  felt 
more  thoroughly  the  hapjjiness  of  doing  good." 

Of  all  his  various  remedies  against  melancholy,  the 
one  on  which  he  most  constantly  and  most  earnestly 
insisted,  was  the  wisdom  of  "  taking  short  views."  — 

"  Dispel,"  he  said,  "  that  prophetic  gloom  which  dives  into 
futurity,  to  extract  sorrow  from  days  and  years  to  come,  and 
which  considers  its  own  unhappy  visions  as  the  decrees  of 
Providence.  We  know  nothing  of  to-morrow  :  our  business 
is  to  be  good  and  happy  to-day." 

Our  business  is  to  be  good  and  happy.  This  dogma 
inevitably  suggests  the  question  —  What  was  Sydney 
Smith's  religion  ?  First  and  foremost,  he  was  a 
staunch  and  consistent  Tlieist. — 

"I  hate  the  insolence,  persecution,  and  intolerance,  which 
so  often  pass  under  the  name  of  religion,  and  have  fought 
against  them  ;  but  I  have  an  unaffected  horror  of  irreligion 
and  impiety,  and  every  principle  of  suspicion  and  fear  would 
be  excited  in  me  by  a  man  who  professed  himself  an  infidel."  i 

1  Compare  his  attack  on  Hobbes,  of  whom  he  says  that  his 
"dirty  recreation"  of  smoking  did  not  interruijt  any  "im- 
moral, irreligious,  or  unmathematical  track  of  thought  in  which 
he  happened  to  be  engaged." —Zeciwres  on  Moral  Philosophy, 
XX  vi. 


VII.]  RELIGION  217 

In  a  lighter  vein,  he  talked  with  dread  of  travelling 
in  a  stage-coach  with  "an  Atheist  who  told  me  what 
he  had  said  in  his  heart."  ^  And  in  1808  he  wrote  to 
his  friend  Jeffrey  with  reference  to  the  tone  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review :  — 

"  I  must  beg  the  favour  of  you  to  be  explicit  on  one  point. 
Do  you  mean  to  take  care  that  the  Review  shall  not  profess 
or  encourage  infidel  principles?  Unless  this  is  the  case,  I 
must  absolutely  give  up  all  thoughts  of  connecting  myself 
with  it." 

The  grounds  on  which  his  theism  rested  seem,  as  Sir 
Leslie  Stephen  points  out,  to  have  been  exactly  those 
which  satisfied  Paley.  Lord  Murray,  who,  though  he 
was  a  judge,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  exacting 
about  the  quality  of  argument,  admiringly  relates  this 
anecdote  of  his  friend  :  — 

"  A  foreigner,  on  one  occasion,  indulging  in  sceptical 
doubts  of  the  existence  of  an  overruling  Providence  in  his 
presence,  Sydney,  who  had  observed  him  evidently  well 
satisfied  with  his  repast,  said,  '  You  must  admit  there  is 
great  genius  and  thought  in  that  dish.'  '  Admirable  ! '  he 
replied  ;  '  nothing  can  be  better.'  '  May  I  then  ask,  are  you 
prepared  to  deny  the  existence  of  the  cook?'" 

Of  course  this  is  nothing  but  Paley's  illustration  of 
the  Watch,  reproduced  in  a  less  impressive  form. 

But  Sydney  Smith  was  not  content  with  a  system  of 
thought  which  provided  him  with  a  working  hypothesis 
for  the  construction  of  the  physical  universe  and  the 
conduct  of  this  present  life.  He  looked  above  and 
beyond ;  and  reinforced  his  own  faith  in  immortality 
by  an  appeal  to  the  general  sense  of  mankind.  — 

1  Dixit  insipiens  in  corde  suo :  Non  est  Deus.  —  Psalm  xiv. 


218  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

"  AVho  ever  thinks  of  turning  into  ridicule  our  great  and 
ardent  hope  of  a  world  to  come?  Whenever  the  man  of 
humour  meddles  with  these  things,  he  is  astonished  to  find 
that  in  all  the  great  feelings  of  their  nature  the  mass  of 
mankind  always  think  and  act  aright;  that  they  are  ready 
enough  to  laugh,  but  that  they  are  quite  as  ready  to  drive 
away,  with  indignation  and  contemj^t,  the  light  fool  who 
comes  with  the  feather  of  wit  to  crumble  the  bulwarks  of 
truth,  and  to  beat  down  the  Temples  of  God.  We  count 
over  the  pious  spirits  of  the  world,  the  beautiful  writers,  the 
great  statesmen,  all  who  have  invented  subtly,  who  have 
thought  deeply,  who  have  executed  wisely:  —  all  these  are 
proofs  that  we  are  destined  for  a  second  life ;  and  it  is  not 
possible  to  believe  that  this  redundant  vigour,  this  lavish  and 
excessive  power,  was  given  for  the  mere  gathering  of  meat 
and  drink.  If  the  only  object  is  present  existence,  such 
faculties  are  cruel,  are  misplaced,  are  useless.  They  all  show 
us  that  there  is  something  great  awaiting  us,  —  that  the  soul 
is  now  young  and  infantine,  springing  up  into  a  more  per- 
fect life  when  the  body  falls  into  dust." 

"  Man  is  imprisoned  here  only  for  a  season,  to  take  a  bet- 
ter or  a  worse  hereafter,  as  he  deserves  it.  This  old  truth 
is  the  fountain  of  all  goodness,  and  justice,  and  kindness 
among  men  :  may  we  all  feel  it  intimately,  obey  it  perpetu- 
ally, and  profit  by  it  eternally !  " 

He  was  not  a  theist  only,  but  a  Christian.  Here 
again,  as  in  the  argument  from  Design,  he  followed 
Paley,  laid  great  stress  on  Evidences,  and  "  selected  his 
train  of  reasoning  witli  some  care  from  the  best  writers." 
He  said :  — ''  The  truth  of  Christianity  depends  upon 
its  leading  facts,  and  of  these  we  have  such  evidence 
as  ought  to  satisfy  lis,  till  it  appears  that  mankind 
have  ever  been  deceived  by  proofs  as  numerous  and 
as  strong."  Having  convinced  himself  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion  was  true,  he  was  loyal  in  word  and  act 
to  what  he  had   accepted.      He   remonstrated  vigor- 


viii.]  RELIGION  219 

ously  against  an  "  anti-Christian  article  "  which  crept 
into  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and  felt,  as  keenly  as  the 
strongest  sacerdotalist  or  the  most  fervent  Evangelical, 
the  bounden  duty  of  defending  the  body  of  truth  to 
which  his  ordination  had  pledged  him. 

It  can  scarcely  be  contested  that  his  conceptions  of 
that  truth  were,  in  some  grave  respects,  defective.  The 
absolute  dominion  and  overruling  providence  of  God 
are  always  present  to  his  mind,  and  he  urges  as  the 
ground  of  all  virtuous  effort  the  Character  and  Example 
of  Christ.  But  the  notion  of  Atonement  finds  no  place 
in  his  thought.  The  virtuous  will  attain  to  eternal 
blessedness,  and  the  vicious  will  perish  in  their  vices. 
The  free  pardon  of  confessed  sin  —  access  to  happiness 
through  a  Divine  Mediation  —  in  a  word,  the  Doctrine 
of  the  Cross  —  seems,  as  far  as  his  recorded  utterances 
go,  to  have  been  quite  alien  from  his  system  of  religion. 
The  appeal  to  personal  experience  of  sinfulness,  for- 
giveness, and  acceptance,  he  would  have  dismissed  as 
mere  enthusiasm  —  and  he  declared  in  his  sermon  on 
the  Character  and  Genius  of  the  Christian  Religion, 
that  "i/ie  Gospel  has  no  enthusiasm."  That  it  once 
was  possible  for  a  clergyman  to  utter  these  five  words 
as  containing  an  axiomatic  truth,  marks,  perhaps  as 
plainly  as  it  is  possible  for  language  to  mark  it,  the 
change  effected  in  the  religion  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land by  the  successive  action  of  the  Evangelical  Eevival 
and  of  the  Oxford  Movement. 

Sydney  Smith's  firm  belief,  from  first  to  last,  was 
that  Religion  was  intended  to  make  men  good  and 
happy  in  daily  life.  This  was  *'  the  calm  tenor  of  its 
language,"  and  the  "  practical  view  "  of  its  rule.  And, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  no  one  can  quarrel  with  the  doctrine 


220  SYDNEY  SMITH  [chap. 

SO  laid  down.     After  staying  with  some  Puritanical 
friends,  he  wrote :  — 

"  I  endeavour  in  vain  to  give  them  more  cheerful  ideas  of 
religion :  to  teach  them  that  God  is  not  a  jealous,  childish, 
merciless  tyrant ;  that  He  is  best  served  by  a  regular  tenor 
of  good  actions,  —  not  by  bad  singing,  ill-composed  prayers, 
and  eternal  apprehensions.  But  the  luxury  of  false  religion 
is,  to  be  unhappy  I  " 

It  was  probably  this  strong  conviction  that  every- 
thing pertaining  to  religion  ought  to  be  bright  and 
cheerful,  that  led  him,  as  far  back  as  the  days  when 
he  was  preaching  in  Edinburgh,  to  urge  the  need  for 
more  material  beauty  in  public  worship.  — 

"  No  reflecting  man  can  ever  wish  to  adulterate  manly  piety 
(the  parent  of  all  that  is  good  in  the  world)  with  mummery 
and  parade.  But  we  are  strange,  very  strange  creatures,  and 
it  is  better  perhaps  not  to  place  too  much  confidence  in  our 
reason  alone.  If  anything,  there  is,  perhaps,  too  little  pomp 
and  ceremony  in  our  worship,  instead  of  too  much.  We 
quarrelled  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  in  a  great  hurry 
and  a  great  passion ;  and,  furious  with  spleen,  clothed  our- 
selves with  sackcloth,  because  she  was  habited  in  brocade ; 
rushing,  like  children,  from  one  extreme  to  another,  and  blind 
to  all  medium  between  complication  and  barrenness,  formality 
and  neglect.  I  am  very  glad  to  find  we  are  calling  in,  more 
and  more,  the  aid  of  music  to  our  services.  In  London, 
where  it  can  be  commanded,  good  music  has  a  prodigious 
effect  in  filling  a  church ;  organs  have  been  put  up  in  various 
churches  in  the  country,  and,  as  I  have  been  informed,  with 
the  best  possible  effect.  Of  what  value,  it  may  be  asked,  are 
auditors  who  come  there  from  such  motives  ?  But  our  first 
business  seems  to  be,  to  bring  them  there  from  any  motive 
which  is  not  undignified  and  ridiculous,  and  then  to  keep 
them  there  from  a  good  one :  those  who  come  for  pleasure 
may  remain  for  prayer." 


vii.]  RELIGION  221 

When  Sydney  speaks  of  onr  "quarrel  with  the 
Koman  Catholic  Church,"  he  speaks  of  a  quarrel  in 
which,  at  least  as  far  as  doctrine  is  concerned,  he 
had  his  full  share.  Never  was  a  stouter  Protestant. 
Even  in  the  passages  in  which  he  makes  his  strongest 
appeals  for  the  civil  rights  of  Romanists,  he  goes  out 
of  the  way  to  pour  scorn  on  their  religion.  Some  of 
his  language  is  unquotable :  here  are  some  milder 
specimens :  — 

"  As  for  the  enormous  wax  candles,  and  superstitious  mum- 
meries, and  painted  jackets  of  the  Catholic  priests,  I  fear 
them  not." 

"  Spencer  Perceval  is  in  horror  lest  twelve  or  fourteen 
old  women  may  be  converted  to  holy  water  and  Catholic 
nonsense." 

"I  am  as  disgusted  with  the  nonsense  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion  as  you  can  be ;  and  no  man  who  talks  such 
nonsense  shall  ever  tithe  the  products  of  the  earth." 

"  Catholic  nonsense  "  is  not  a  happy  phrase  on  the 
lips  of  a  man  who  was  officially  bound  to  recite  his 
belief  in  the  Catholic  Faith  and  to  pray  for  the  good 
estate  of  the  Catholic  Church.  A  priest  who  administers 
Baptism  according  to  the  use  of  the  Church  of  England 
should  not  talk  about  ''the  sanctified  contents  of  a 
pump,"  or  describe  people  who  cross  themselves  as 
"  making  right  angles  upon  the  breast  and  forehead." 
But  time  brings  changes  in  religious,  as  well  as  in 
social,  manners,  and  Peter  Plymley  prophesied  nearly 
thirty  years  before  Keble's  sermon  on  "  National  Apos- 
tasy "  had  started  the  second  revival  of  the  English 
Church.^ 

1  July  14,  1833.  "  I  have  ever  considered  and  kept  the  day 
as  the  start  of  the  religious  movement  of  1833."  —  Cardinal 
Newman,  Apologia. 


222  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

No  one  who  has  studied  the  character  and  career 
of  Sydney  Smith  would  expect  him  to  be  very 
sympathetic  with  the  work  which  bore  the  name  of 
Pusey.     In  1841  he  preached  against  it  at  St.  Paul's. 

"  I  wish  you  had  witnessed,  the  other  day,  my  incredible 
boldness  in  attacking  the  Puseyites.  I  told  them  that  they 
made  the  Christian  religion  a  religion  of  j)ostures  and 
ceremonies,  of  circumflexions  and  genuflexions,  of  garments 
and  vestures,  of  ostentation  and  parade;  that  they  took 
tithe  of  mint  aud  cummin,  and  neglected  the  weightier 
matters  of  the  law, — justice,  mercy,  aud  the  duties  of  life: 
and  so  forth." 

Prom  Combe  Plorey  he  wrote :  — 

"Everybody  here  is  turning  Puseyite.  Having  worn  out 
my  black  gown,  I  preach  in  my  surplice;  this  is  all  the 
change  I  have  made,  or  mean  to  make." 

In  1842  he  wrote  to  a  friend  abroad :  — 

"  I  have  not  yet  discovered  of  what  I  am  to  die,  but  I 
rather  believe  I  shall  be  burnt  alive  by  the  Puseyites. 
Nothing  so  remarkable  in  England  as  the  progress  of  these 
foolish  people.i  I  have  no  conception  what  they  mean,  if 
it  be  not  to  revive  every  absurd  ceremony,  and  every 
antiquated  folly,  which  the  common  sense  of  mankind  has 
set  to  sleep.  You  will  find  at  your  return  a  fanatical  Church 
of  England,  but  pray  do  not  let  it  prevent  your  return.  We 
can  always  gather  together,  in  Green  Street,  a  chosen  few 
who  have  never  bowed  the  knee  to  Rimmon." 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  the  Hermit  of  Green 
Street  was  very  well  qualified  to  settle  the  points  at 

1  In  early  life  he  wrote  from  Edinburgh  :  —  "In  England,  I 
maintain,  (except  among  ladies  in  the  middle  rank  of  life)  there 
is  no  religion  at  all.  The  Clergy  of  England  have  no  more 
influence  over  the  people  at  large  than  the  Cheesemongers  of 
England." 


vn.]  RELIGION  223 

issue  between  the  "  Puseyites  "  and  himself,  or  had 
bestowed  very  close  attention  on  what  is,  after  all, 
mainly  a  question  of  Documents.  In  earlier  days, 
when  it  suited  his  purpose  to  argue  for  greater 
liberality  towards  Koman  Catholics,  he  had  said:  — 

"  In  their  tenets,  in  their  church-government,  in  the  nature 
of  their  endowments,  the  Dissenters  are  infinitely  more  dis- 
tant from  the  Church  of  England  than  the  Catholics  are." 

In  1813  he  had  intervened  in  the  controversy 
which  raged  round  the  cradle  of  that  most  pacific 
institution,  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society, 
and  had  taken  the  unexpectedly  clerical  view  that 
Churchmen  were  bound  to  ''  circulate  the  Scriptures 
with  the  Prayer  Book,  in  preference  to  any  other 
method."  But  he  grounded  a  claim  to  promotion  on 
the  fact  that  he  had  "  always  avoided  speculative,  and 
preached  practical,  religion."  He  spoke  of  a  "theo- 
logical "  bishop  in  the  sense  of  dispraise,  and  linked 
the  epithet  with  "  bitter  "  and  "  bustling."  Beyond 
question  he  had  read  the  Bible,  but  he  was  not 
alarmingly  familiar  with  the  sacred  text.  It  is 
reported^  that  he  once  referred  to  the  case  of  the 
man  who  puts  his  hand  to  the  plough  and  looks 
back  ^  as  being  "  somewhere  in  the  Epistles."  He 
forgot  the  names  of  Job's  daughters,  until  reminded 
by  a  neighbouring  Squire  who  had  called  his  grey- 
hounds Jemima,  Kezia,  and  Keren-Happuch.  He  at- 
tributed the  Nunc  Dimittis  to  an  author  vaguely  but 
conveniently  known  as  "The  Psalmist,"  and  by  so 
doing  drew  down  on  himself  the  ridicule  of  Wilson 

1  By  Mr.  Stuart  Reid.  2  st.  Luke  ix.  62. 


224  SYDNEY   SMITH  [chap. 

Croker.^  It  may  be  questioned  whether  he  ever  read 
the  Prayer  Book  except  in  Church.  With  the  litera- 
ture of  Christian  antiquity  he  had  not,  so  far  as  his 
writings  show,  the  slightest  acquaintance;  and  his 
knowledge  of  Anglican  divines  —  Wake,  and  Cleaver, 
and  Sherlock,  and  Horsley  —  has  a  suspicious  air  of 
having  been  hastily  acquired  for  the  express  purpose 
of  confuting  Bishop  Marsh,  So  we  will  not  cite 
him  as  a  witness  in  a  case  where  the  highest 
and  deepest  mysteries  of  Kevelation  are  involved, 
and  where  a  minute  acquaintance  with  Documents  is 
an  indispensable  equipment.  We  prefer  to  take  leave 
of  him  as  a  Christian  preacher,  seeking  only  the 
edification  of  his  hearers.  In  a  sermon  on  the  Holy 
Communion,  preached  from  the  pulpit  of  St.  Paul's, 
he  delivers  this  striking  testimony  to  a  religious 
truth,  which,  if  stated  in  a  formal  proposition,  he 
would  probably  have  disavowed :  — 

"  If  you,  who  only  partake  of  this  Sacrament,  cannot  fail 
to  be  struck  with  its  solemnity,  we  who  not  only  receive  it, 
but  minister  it  to  every  description  of  human  beings,  in  every 
season  of  peril  and  distress,  must  be  intimately  and  deeply 
pervaded  by  that  feeling.  ...  To  know  the  power  of  this 
Sacrament,  give  it  to  him  whose  doom  is  sealed,  who  in  a 

i"What  can  we  think  of  tbe  fitness  of  a  man  to  address 
his  Queen  and  his  country  in  the  dogmatical  strain  of  this 
pamphlet,  who  does  not  know  the  New  Testament  from  the 
Old ;  the  Psalms  from  the  Gospel,  David  from  Simeon ;  who 
expatiates  so  pompously  on  the  duty  and  benefit  of  Prayer, 
yet  mistakes  and  miscalls  a  portion  of  the  Common  Prayer,  which 
he  is  bound  in  law  and  in  conscience  to  repeat  every  evening  of  his 
life."  —  Quarterly  Review,  July  1837. 

The  reference  is  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Queen's  Accession.  The 
blunder  was  rectified  in  a  later  edition. 


VII.]  KELIGION  225 

few  hours  will  be  no  more.  The  Bread  and  the  Wine  are 
his  immense  hope  !  they  seem  to  stand  between  him  and 
infinite  danger,  to  soothe  pain,  to  calm  perturbation,  and  to 
inspire  immortal  courage." 

What  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  ?  It  is, 
in  my  judgment,  that  Sydney  Smith  was  a  patriot  of 
the  noblest  and  purest  type ;  a  genuinely  religious  man 
according  to  his  light  and  opportunity ;  and  the  happy 
possessor  of  a  rich  and  singular  talent  which  he  em- 
ployed through,  a  long  life  in  the  willing  service  of  the 
helpless,  the  persecuted,  and  the  poor.  To  use  his  own 
fine  phrase,  the  interests  of  humanity  "got  into  his 
heart  and  circulated  with  his  blood."  ^  He  wrote  and 
spoke  and  acted  in  prompt  and  uncalculating  obedience 
to  an  imperious  conviction.  — 

"  If,"  he  said,  "  you  ask  me  who  excites  me,  I  answer  you, 
it  is  that  Judge  Who  stirs  good  thoughts  in  honest  hearts  — 
under  Whose  warrant  I  impeach  the  wrong,  and  by  Whose 
help  I  hope  to  chastise  it." 

Here  was  both  the  source  and  the  consecration  of 
that  glorious  mirth  by  which  he  still  holds  his  place  in 
the  hearts  and  on  the  lips  of  men.  His  playful  speech 
was  the  vehicle  of  a  passionate  purpose.  From  his 
earliest  manhood,  he  was  ready  to  sacrifice  all  that  the 
sordid  world  thinks  precious  for  Religious  Equality  and 
Eational  Freedom. 

1  He  said  this  of  Lord  Grey. 


APPENDIX  A 


LIST  OF  SYDNEY  SMITH'S  ARTICLES  IN  THE 
EDINBURGH  REVIEW 


Vol. 

Art. 

Page. 

Vol. 

Art. 

Page. 

Vol. 

Art. 

Page. 

2 

18 

12 

9 

151 

32 

6 

389 

3 

24 

13 

2 

25 

33 

3 

68 

9 

83 

13 

5 

77 

33 

5 

91 

12 

94 

13 

4 

333 

34 

5 

109 

16 

113 

14 

3 

40 

34 

2 

320 

18 

122 

14 

11 

145 

34 

8 

242 

20 

128 

14 

5 

353 

35 

5 

92 

6 

314 

14 

13 

490 

35 

7 

123 

10 

382 

15 

3 

40 

35 

2 

286 

0 

2 

30 

15 

3 

299 

36 

6 

110 

2 

4 

53 

16 

7 

158 

36 

3 

353 

2 

6 

86 

16 

3 

326 

37 

2 

325 

2 

14 

136 

16 

7 

399 

37 

7 

432 

2 

17 

172 

17 

4 

330 

38 

4 

85 

2 

22 

202 

17 

8 

393 

39 

2 

43 

2 

2 

287 

18 

3 

325 

39 

2 

299 

2 

4 

330 

21 

4 

93 

40 

2 

31 

2 

10 

398 

22 

4 

67 

40 

7 

427 

3 

12 

146 

23 

8 

189 

41 

7 

143 

3 

7 

334 

31 

2 

44 

42 

4 

367 

3 

9 

355 

31 

6 

132 

43 

2 

299 

9 

12 

177 

31 

2 

295 

43 

7 

395 

10 

4 

299 

32 

2 

28 

44 

2 

47 

10 

6 

329 

32 

3 

309 

45 

3 

74 

11 

5 

341 

32 

6 

111 

45 

7 

423 

12 

5 

82 

227 


228 


SYDNEY   SMITPI 


Of  these  articles,  sixty-five  were  reprinted  by  the  author 
and  are  to  be  found  in  his  Works.  Those  which  he  did  not 
rej^rint  are  the  following:  — 


^ol. 

Art. 

Vol. 

Art. 

Vol. 

Art. 

Vol. 

Art 

1 

3 

3 

12 

16 

7 

34 

5 

2 

4 

3 

7 

17 

4 

34 

8 

3 

1 

13 

5 

Vol. 

40 

32 

Art. 

2 

6 

37 

2 

APPENDIX  B 


"  We  can  inform  Jonathan  what  are  the  inevitable  conse- 
quences of  being  too  fond  of  glory ;  Taxes  upon  every  article 
which  enters  into  the  mouth,  or  covers  the  back,  or  is  placed 
under  the  foot  —  taxes  upon  every  thing  which  it  is  pleasant 
to  see,  hear,  feel,  smell,  or  taste  —  taxes  upon  warmth,  light, 
and  locomotion  —  taxes  on  every  thing  on  earth  and  the 
waters  under  the  earth,  on  every  thing  that  comes  from  abroad, 
or  is  grown  at  home  —  taxes  on  the  raw  material  —  taxes  on 
every  fresh  value  that  is  added  to  it  by  the  industry  of  man 
—  taxes  on  the  sauce  which  pampers  man's  appetite,  and 
the  drug  that  restores  him  to  health  —  on  the  ermine  which 
decorates  the  judge,  and  the  rope  which  hangs  the  criminal  — 
on  the  poor  man's  salt,  and  the  rich  man's  spice  —  on  the  brass 
nails  of  the  coffin,  and  the  ribands  of  the  bride.  At  bed 
or  board,  couchant  or  levant,  we  must  pay — the  schoolboy 
whips  his  taxed  top  —  the  beardless  youth  manages  his  taxed 
horse,  with  a  taxed  bridle,  on  a  taxed  road  :  —  and  the  dying 
Englishman,  pouring  his  medicine,  which  has  paid  7  per  cent., 
into  a  spoon  that  has  paid  15  percent.  —  flings  himself  back 
upon  his  chintz  bed,  which  has  paid  22  per  cent.  —  and  expires 
in  the  arms  of  an  apothecary  who  has  paid  a  licence  of  a 
hundred  pounds  for  the  privilege  of  putting  him  to  death. 


APPENDIX  B  220 

His  whole  property  is  then  immediately  taxed  from  2  to  10 
per  cent.  Besides  the  probate,  large  fees  are  demanded  for 
burying  him  in  the  chancel ;  his  virtues  are  handed  down  to 
posterity  on  taxed  marble  ;  and  he  is  then  gathered  to  his 
fathers  —  to  be  taxed  no  more."  —  Review  of  SeyherVs  "  Avier- 
ica  "  in  the  Collected  Works. 


"  What  would  our  ancestors  say  to  this.  Sir  ?  How  does 
this  measure  tally  with  their  institutions  ?  How  does  it  agree 
with  their  experience  ?  Are  we  to  put  the  wisdom  of  yester- 
day in  competition  with  the  wisdom  of  centuries?  {Hear  ! 
hear  /)  Is  beardless  youth  to  show  no  respect  for  the  deci- 
sions of  mature  age?  {Loud  cries  of  hear !  hear!)  If  this 
measure  be  right,  would  it  have  escaped  the  wisdom  of  those 
Saxon  progenitors  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  so  many  of 
our  best  political  institutions  ?  Would  the  Dane  have  passed 
it  over?  Would  the  Norman  have  rejected  it?  Would  such 
a  notable  discovery  have  been  reserved  for  these  modern  and 
degenerate  times  ?  Besides,  Sir,  if  the  measure  itself  is  good, 
I  ask  the  Honourable  Gentleman  if  this  is  the  time  for  carry- 
ing it  into  execution  —  whether,  in  fact,  a  more  unfortunate 
period  could  have  been  selected  than  that  which  he  has  chosen  ? 
If  this  were  an  ordinary  measui'e,  I  should  not  oppose  it  with 
so  much  vehemence ;  but,  Sir,  it  calls  in  question  the  wisdom 
of  an  irrevocable  law — of  a  law  passed  at  the  memorable  period 
of  the  Revolution.  What  right  have  we.  Sir,  to  break  down 
this  firm  column  on  which  the  great  men  of  that  age  stamped 
a  character  of  eternity?  Are  not  all  authorities  against  this 
measure  —  Pitt,  Fox,  Cicero,  and  the  Attorney  and  Solicitor- 
General  ?  The  proposition  is  new.  Sir ;  it  is  the  first  time  it 
was  ever  heard  in  this  House.  I  am  not  prepai'ed.  Sir  —  this 
House  is  not  prepared,  to  receive  it.  The  measure  implies  a 
distrust  of  his  Majesty's  Government ;  their  disapproval  is 
sufficient  to  warrant  opposition.  Precaution  only  is  requisite 
where  danger  is  apprehended.  Here  the  high  character  of 
the  individuals  in  question  is  a  sufficient  guarantee  against 
any  ground  of  alarm.     Give  not,  then,  your  sanction  to  this 


230  SYDNEY   SMITH 

measure ;  for,  whatever  be  its  character,  if  you  do  give  your 
sanction  to  it,  the  same  man  by  whom  this  is  proposed,  will 
propose  to  you  others  to  which  it  will  be  impossible  to  give 
your  consent.  I  care  very  little,  Sir,  for  the  ostensible 
measure ;  but  what  is  there  behind?  What  are  the  Honour- 
able Gentleman's  future  schemes?  If  we  pass  this  bill,  what 
fresh  concessions  may  he  not  require?  What  further  degrada- 
tion is  he  planning  for  his  country?  Talk  of  evil  and  inconven- 
ience, Sir !  look  to  other  countries  —  study  other  aggregations 
and  societies  of  men,  and  then  see  whether  the  laws  of  this 
country  demand  a  remedy  or  deserve  a  panegyric.  Was  the 
Honourable  Gentleman  (let  me  ask  him)  always  of  this  Avay 
of  thinking?  Do  I  not  remember  when  he  was  the  advocate 
in  this  House  of  very  opposite  opinions?  I  not  only  quarrel 
with  his  present  sentiments,  Sir,  but  I  declare  very  frankly  I 
do  not  like  the  party  with  which  he  acts.  If  his  own  motives 
were  as  pure  as  possible,  they  cannot  but  suffer  contamination 
from  those  with  whom  he  is  politically  associated.  This 
measure  may  be  a  boon  to  the  constitution,  but  I  will  accept 
no  favour  to  the  constitution  from  such  hands.  {Loud  cries  of 
hear !  hear .')  I  profess  myself.  Sir,  an  honest  and  upright 
member  of  the  British  Parliament,  and  I  am  not  afraid  to 
profess  myself  an  enemy  to  all  change,  and  all  innovation.  I 
am  satisfied  with  things  as  they  are ;  and  it  will  be  my  pride 
and  pleasure  to  hand  down  this  country  to  my  children  as  I 
received  it  from  those  who  preceded  me.  The  Honourable 
Gentleman  pretends  to  justify  the  severity  with  which  he 
has  attacked  the  Noble  Lord  who  presides  in  the  Court  of 
Chancery.  But  I  say  such  attacks  are  pregnant  with  mischief 
to  Government  itself.  Oppose  Ministers,  you  oppose  Govern- 
ment; disgrace  Ministers,  you  disgrace  Government;  bring 
Ministers  into  contempt,  you  bring  Government  into  con- 
tempt; and  anarchy  and  civil  war  are  the  consequences.  Be- 
sides, Sir,  the  measure  is  unnecessary.  Nobody  complains  of 
disorder  in  that  shape  in  which  it  is  the  aim  of  your  measure 
to  propose  a  remedy  to  it.  The  business  is  one  of  the  great- 
est importance;  there  is  need  of  the  greatest  caution  and 
circumspection.  Do  not  let  us  be  precipitate.  Sir ;  it  is  im- 
possible to  foresee  all  consequences.     Every  thing  should  be 


APPENDIX  C  231 

gradual ;  the  example  of  a  neighbouring  nation  should  fill  us 
with  alarm  !  The  honourable  gentleman  has  taxed  me  with 
illiberality.  Sir,  I  denj^  the  charge.  I  hate  innovation,  but  I 
love  improvement.  I  am  an  enemy  to  the  corruption  of 
Government,  but  I  defend  its  influence.  I  dread  reform,  but 
I  dread  it  only  when  it  is  intemperate.  I  consider  the  liberty 
of  the  press  as  the  great  Palladium  of  the  Constitution  ;  but, 
at  the  same  time,  I  hold  the  licentiousness  of  the  press  in  the 
greatest  abhorrence.  Nobody  is  more  conscious  than  I  am  of 
the  splendid  abilities  of  the  Honourable  Mover,  but  I  tell 
him  at  once,  his  scheme  is  too  good  to  be  practicable.  It 
savours  of  Utopia.  It  looks  well  in  theory,  but  it  won't  do 
in  practice.  It  will  not  do,  I  repeat.  Sir,  in  practice ;  and  so 
the  advocates  of  the  measure  will  find,  if,  unfortunately,  it 
should  find  its  way  through  Parliament.  (^Cheers.)  The 
source  of  that  corruption  to  which  the  Honourable  Member 
alludes,  is  in  the  minds  of  the  people  ;  so  rank  and  extensive 
is  that  corruption,  that  no  political  reform  can  have  any  effect 
in  removing  it.  Instead  of  reforming  others  —  instead  of 
reforming  the  State,  the  Constitution,  and  every  thing  that 
is  most  excellent,  let  each  man  reform  himself  !  let  him  look 
at  home,  he  will  find  there  enougli  to  do,  without  looking 
abroad,  and  aiming  at  what  is  out  of  his  power.  (Loud 
Cheers.)  And  now.  Sir,  as  it  is  frequently  the  custom  in  this 
House  to  end  with  a  quotation,  and  as  the  gentleman  who 
preceded  me  in  the  debate  has  anticipated  me  in  my  favourite 
quotation  of  the  '  Strong  pull  and  long  pull,'  I  shall  end  with 
the  memorable  words  of  the  assembled  barons  — '  Nolumus 
leges  Anglice  miitari.' "  —  Review  of  Bentham's  "Book  of 
Fallacies  "  in  the  Collected  Works. 


APPENDIX  C 

"  It  is  of  some  importance  at  what  period  a  man  is  born. 
A  young  man,  alive  at  this  period,  hardly  knows  to  what 
improvements  of  human  life  he  has  been  introduced ;  and  I 
would  bring  before  his  notice  the  following  eighteen  changes 


232  SYDNEY  SMITH 

which  have  taken  place  in  England  since  I  first  began  to 
breathe  in  it  the  breath  of  life  —  a  period  amounting  now  to 
nearly  seventy -three  years. 

"  Gas  was  unknown :  I  groped  aboiit  the  streets  of  London 
in  all  but  the  utter  darkness  of  a  twinkling  oil  lamp,  under 
the  protection  of  watchmen  in  their  grand  climacteric,  and 
exposed  to  every  species  of  depredation  and  insult. 

"  I  have  been  nine  hours  in  sailing  from  Dover  to  Calais 
before  the  invention  of  steam.  It  took  me  nine  hours  to  go 
from  Taunton  to  Bath,  before  the  invention  of  railroads,  and 
I  now  go  in  six  hours  from  Taunton  to  Loudon !  In  going 
from  Taunton  to  Bath,  I  suffered  between  10,000  and  12,000 
severe  contusions,  before  stone-breaking  Macadam  was  born. 

"  I  paid  £15  in  a  single  year  for  repairs  of  carriage-springs 
on  the  pavement  of  London ;  and  I  now  glide  wdthout  noise 
or  fracture,  on  wooden  pavements. 

"  I  can  walk,  by  the  assistance  of  the  police,  from  one  end 
of  London  to  the  other,  without  molestation  ;  or,  if  tired,  get 
into  a  cheap  and  active  cab,  instead  of  those  cottages  on 
wheels,  which  the  hackney  coaches  were  at  the  beginning  of 
my  life. 

"  I  had  no  umbrella  !  They  were  little  used,  and  very  dear. 
There  were  no  waterproof  hats,  aud  my  hat  has  often  been 
reduced  by  rains  into  its  primitive  pulp. 

''  I  could  not  keep  my  smallclothes  in  their  proper  place,  for 
braces  were  unknown.  If  I  had  the  gout,  there  was  no  col- 
chicum.  If  I  was  bilious,  there  was  no  calomel.  If  I  was 
attacked  by  ague,  there  was  no  quinine.  There  were  filthy 
coffee-houses  instead  of  elegant  clubs.  Game  could  not  be 
bought.  Quarrels  about  Uncommuted  Tithes  were  endless. 
The  corruptions  of  Parliament,  before  Reform,  infamous. 
There  were  no  banks  to  receive  the  savings  of  the  poor.  The 
Poor  Laws  were  gradually  sapping  the  vitals  of  the  country; 
and,  whatever  miseries  I  suffered,  I  had  no  post  to  whisk  my 
complaints  for  a  single  penny  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the 
empire ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  privations,  I  lived  on 
quietly,  and  am  now  ashamed  that  I  was  not  more  discon- 
tented, and  utterly  surprised  that  all  these  changes  and 
inventions  did  not  occur  two  centuries  ago. 


APPENDIX  E  233 

"  I  forgot  to  add  that,  as  the  basket  of  stage-coaches,  in 
■which  luggage  was  then  carried,  had  no  springs,  your  clothes 
were  rubbed  all  to  pieces ;  and  that  even  in  the  best  society- 
one  third  of  the  gentlemen  at  least  were  always  drunk."  — 
^'■Modern  Changes  "  in  the  Collected  Works. 

APPENDIX  D 

"The  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  am  convinced  that  the 
apothecary  is  of  more  importance  than  Seneca ;  and  that  half 
the  unhappiness  in  the  world  proceeds  from  little  stoppages, 
from  a  duct  choked  up,  from  food  pressing  in  the  wrong  place, 
from  a  vext  duodenum,  or  an  agitated  pylorus. 

"  The  deception,  as  practised  upon  human  creatures,  is 
curious  and  entertaining.  My  friend  sups  late ;  he  eats  some 
strong  soup,  then  a  lobster,  then  some  tart,  and  he  dilutes  these 
esculent  varieties  with  wine.  The  next  day  I  call  upon  him. 
He  is  going  to  sell  his  house  in  London,  and  to  retire  into  the 
country.  He  is  alarmed  for  his  eldest  daughter's  health. 
His  expenses  are  hourly  increasing,  and  nothing  but  a  timely 
retreat  can  save  him  from  ruin.  All  this  is  the  lobster ;  and, 
when  over-excited  nature  has  had  time  to  manage  this  testa- 
ceous encumbrance,  the  daughter  recovers,  the  finances  are  in 
good  order,  and  every  rural  idea  effectually  excluded  from  the 
mind. 

"In  the  same  manner  old  friendships  are  destroyed  by 
toasted  cheese,  and  hard  salted  meat  has  led  to  suicide.  Un- 
pleasant feelings  of  the  body  produce  correspondent  sensations 
in  the  mind,  and  a  great  scene  of  wretchedness  is  sketched 
out  by  a  morsel  of  indigestible  and  misguided  food.  Of  such 
infinite  consequence  to  happiness  is  it  to  study  the  body  !  "  — 
Quoted  by  Lady  Holland  in  her  "Memoir  of  Sydney  Smith." 

APPENDIX  E 

"  I  am  sorry  that  I  did  not,  in  the  execution  of  my  self- 
created  office  as  a  reviewer,  take  an  opportunity  in  this,  or 


234  SYDNEY  SMITH 

some  other  military  work,  to  descant  a  little  upon  the  miseries 
of  war;  and  I  think  this  has  been  unaccountably  neglected  in 
a  work  abounding  in  useful  essays,  and  ever  on  the  watch  to 
propagate  good  and  wise  principles.  It  is  not  that  human 
beings  can  live  without  occasional  wars,  but  they  may  live 
with  fewer  wars,  and  take  more  just  views  of  the  evils  which 
war  inflicts  upon  mankind.  If  three  men  were  to  have  their 
legs  and  arms  broken,  and  were  to  remain  all  night  exposed 
to  the  inclemency  of  weather,  the  whole  country  would  be  in 
a  state  of  the  most  dreadful  agitation.  Look  at  the  wholesale 
death  of  a  field  of  battle,  ten  acres  covered  with  dead,  and 
half  dead,  and  dying ;  and  the  shrieks  and  agonies  of  many 
thousand  human  beings.  There  is  more  of  misery  inflicted 
upon  mankind  by  one  year  of  war,  than  by  all  the  civil  pecu- 
lations and  oppressions  of  a  century.  Yet  it  is  a  state  into 
which  the  mass  of  mankind  rush  with  the  greatest  avidity, 
hailing  ofliicial  murderers,  in  scarlet,  gold,  and  cocks'  feathers, 
as  the  greatest  and  most  glorious  of  human  creatures.  It  is 
the  business  of  every  wise  and  good  man  to  set  himself  against 
this  passion  for  military  glory,  which  really  seems  to  be  the 
most  fruitful  source  of  human  misery. 

"  What  would  be  said  of  a  party  of  gentlemen  who  were  to 
sit  very  peaceably  conversing  for  half  an  hour,  and  then  were 
to  fight  for  another  half  hour,  then  shake  hands,  and  at  the 
expiration  of  thirty  minutes  fight  again  ?  Y'et  such  has  been 
the  state  of  the  world  between  1714  and  1815,  a  period  in 
which  there  was  in  England  as  many  years  of  war  as  peace. 
Societies  have  been  instituted  for  the  preservation  of  peace, 
and  for  lessening  the  popular  love  of  war.  They  deserve 
every  encouragement.  The  highest  praise  is  due  to  Loiiis 
Philippe  for  his  efforts  to  keep  Europe  in  peace." — Footnote 
to  Review  of''''  Letters  from  a  Mahratta  Camp  "  in  the  Collected 
Works. 


INDEX 


Abbot,  The  (Scott),  208. 

Advocates,  duties  of,  102. 

Alleu,  John,  84,  206. 

Althorp,  Lord,  173. 

America,  Seybert's,  Review  of, 

227-228. 
American  affairs,  190,  195,  199. 

War  of  Independence,  140. 

Anastasius  (Hope),  209. 
Apologia  (Newman),  76,  221  n. 
Aristotle,  36. 
Auckland,  Lord,  161. 
Austin,  Mrs.,  145  n.,  153. 


Bacon,  36. 

Ballot,  the,  177. 

Banks,  Sir  Joseph,  187. 

Barrington,  Bishop,  16. 

Beach,  Hicks-,  family,  14,  15,  17, 

18,  19,  22. 
Beaconsfield,  Lord,  128, 161, 162  n. 
Beattie,  35. 
Bedford,  Duke  of,  18. 
Benefices,  inequality  of,  164,  168 

seq.,  171. 
Bennet,  Lady  Mary,  85,  205. 
Berkeley,  Bishop,  35. 
Bernard,  Mr.  Thomas,  30,  31,  39. 
Bethell,  Bishop,  78. 
Bishops,  powers  of,  165  seq. 
Blomfield,  Bishop,  79,  173,  175, 

176,  207. 


Book    of  Fallacies   (Bentham), 

Review  of,  228-230. 
Bossuet,  49. 
Bowles,  John,  26. 
Bride    of     Lammermoor,     The 

(Scott),  209. 
Brougham,  Lord,  18,  24,  25,  26, 

128. 
Brown,  Thomas  (metaphysician), 

18,  25,  34. 
Butler,  George,  Head-master  of 

Harrow,  78. 
Burke,  198,  215. 
Byron,  3,  26  ?i. 


C 

Camden,  Lord,  63. 

Campbell,  Lord,  161. 

Canning,  3,  48,  50,  60,  61,  62,  63, 

124,  125,  198. 
Carey,     William     (missionary), 

180,  181. 
Carlisle,  Lord,  87. 

see  Howard. 

Carr,  Bishop,  145  n. 
Castlereagh,  Lord,  55,  56,  63,  140. 
Cathedral  property,  164, 168  seq., 

171  seq. 
Catholic  Question,  42,  43,  45-76, 

106  seq. 

Church,  Roman,  115. 

Catholicism,  Roman,  221. 
Channing,  191  n. 


235 


236 


SYDNEY   SMITH 


Charlemont,  Lady,  161. 
Charles  i.,  119. 

II.,  119. 

Church,  Dean,  91. 

Church  of  England,  46,  77  seq., 

108,  121,  178. 
Church  Reform,  lG.3-176. 
Clarendon,  Lord,  161. 
Classics,  study  of,  10. 
Clergy,  English,  91,  106, 163,  221, 
222. 

non-residence  of,  77  seq. 

Catholic,  education  of,  53. 

Coercion  of  Ireland,  69. 

Combe  Florey,  Somerset,  131, 132 

seq.,  142. 
Commission,   Ecclesiastical,   163 

seq. 
Constable  (publisher),  26. 

Contempt  of  Wealth  (Seneca), 
176. 

Copley,  see  Lyudhurst. 

Coruewall,  Bishop,  145  n. 

Coronation  Oath,  47,  165. 

Cottenham,  Lord,  161. 

Courtenay,  Bishop,  78. 

Cowper,  3. 

Croker,  John  Wilson,  168,  224. 

Cromwell,  117. 

Cromwell,  Henry,  120  n. 

D 

Davy,  Sir  Humphry,  87. 

Denman,  Lord,  161. 

Devonshire,  "William  Cavendish, 
7th  Duke  of,  196. 

Dickens,  Charles,  209. 

Disabilities,  Catholic,  65  seq.,  113 
seq. 

Don  Juan  (Byron),  44  n. 

Dryden,  207. 

Dudley,  Lord,  see  Ward. 

Duigenan,  Patrick,  107. 

Duudas,  Henry  (Viscount  Mel- 
ville), 7  ?i.,  21,  24,  140. 

Dunstauville,  Lady,  161. 

Durham,  Lord,  88. 


E 

Eastlake,  Mr.,  161. 
Ecclesiastical    Commission,    163 

seq. 
Education  ,15.5-156 ;  public  school, 
5,  6;  value  of  Classical,  5  seq. 
Edinburgh,  28. 

University,  17  seq. 

Edinbu rgh  Review ,  24  seg . ,  86, 90, 

177,  183,  207,  208,  217,  219. 
Sydney  Smith's  con- 
tributions to,  26,  27,  40,  90,  91, 
92  seq.,  126,  177,  184,  226,  227. 
Eldon,  Lord,  25,  56,  140. 
Elementanj  Sketches  of  Moral 

Philosophy,  33  seq. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  47,  119. 
Ellenborough,  Lord,  145  n. 
Emancipation,  Catholic,  65,  106 

seq..  Via,  136 /i.,  140. 
Endymion  (Beaconsfield),  128  n. 
England  at  the  beginning  of  the 

nineteenth  century,  25. 
English  Bards  and  Scotch   Re- 

vieioers  (Byron),  26  n.,  44  ?i. 
English    Church   in    the    Nine- 
teenth Century  (Overton) ,  16 n. 
Enquirer  (Godwin),  89. 
Epitaph  on  Pitt,  Sydney  Smith's, 

40,  41. 
Erskine,  Lord,  41. 
Essex,  Lord,  160  n. 
Evangelical  clergy,  178, 183;  Re- 
vival, 219. 
Evangelical  Magazine,  179. 


Ferguson,  35. 

Fitzgerald,  William  Vesey,  128. 
Foston-le-Clay,  41,  78  seq. 
Fox,  Miss,  87. 

(martyrologist),  119. 

General,  203,  204. 

France  and  Ireland,  57,  60,  61, 

62,  63. 
Fry,  Mrs.,  85. 


INDEX 


237 


G 

Game  Laws,  85. 

Gas,  iutroduotion  of,  88,  231. 
George  in.,  40,  4l2,  G8,  71. 

IV.,  124,  125,  135. 

Gladstone,  49, 163, 190  n. ;  Glean- 

ings,  1()3  n. 
Glenelg,  Lord,  161. 
Godericli,  Lord,  125. 
Godwin,  William,  89. 
Gower,  Levesou-,  Lady,  87  n. 
Granby  (Lister),  200. 
Grattau,  Henry,  29,  56,  184. 
Grenville,  Lord,  40,  41,  55,  75. 
Greville,  Charles,  135,  153. 
Grey,  Lord,  44,  88,  112,  1.36,  141, 

143,  145,  147,  149,  151,  196,  197, 

225. 

Lady,  112. 

Grote,  177,  211. 

"  Gunpowder  Treason,"  Sermon 

on,  128,  154. 


Habit,  Lecture  on,  38. 
Halford,  Sir  Henry,  83. 
Hallara,  163. 
Harcourt,  Vernon-,  Archbishop, 

79n.,88,  107. 

"William,  107. 

Miss  Georgiana,  190, 191. 

Harrowby,  Lord,  107. 

Hawkesbury,  Lord,  59,  60,  201  n. 

Haydon  (painter),  204. 

Heart  of  Midlothian  (Scott) ,  208. 

Henley,  Lord,  41  n. 

Henry  viii.,  119. 

Hermann,  175. 

Hibbert,  Nathaniel,  23, 125, 161. 

Hill,  John,  17. 

History  of  Roman  Jurisprudence 

(Terrasson),  90. 
Hobbes,  216  ?i. 
Hoche,  General,  49. 


Holland,  Lady  (Sydney  Smith's 

daughter),  5,  22,  192,  214.    See 

Smith,  Saba. 

Sir  Henry,  23, 161, 192. 

Miss  Caroline,  193. 

Holland,  Lady   (Elizabeth  Vas- 

sall),  30,  36,  40,  41,  79,  80,  87, 

161,  167  n.,  203,  213. 
Lord,  29,  40,  41,  75,  87,  128, 


206,  212. 

Scott,  Canon,  205. 

Ho/y  Living  and  Dying  (Jeremy 
Taylor),  130. 

Hope,  Mr.,  161. 

Hope,  Thomas,  209. 

Horner,  Francis,  18,  25,  29,  32. 

Houghton,  Lord,  32, 144  n.,  194  n., 
198  n. ;  Life  of  (Sir  Werayss 
Reid) ,  195  n. 

Howard,  William  (Earl  of  Car- 
lisle), 110. 

Mrs.  Henry,  83  n. 


Howick,  Lord,  56. 
Howley,  Archbishop,  3. 
Hume,  34  ?i.,  35. 


Improvements,  Modern,  230-232. 
Ingram,  Meynell-,  H.  C,  196. 
Invasion  of  England,  55. 
Ireland,  Roman  Catholics  of,  48. 
Irish  Question,  see  Catholic. 
Ivanhoe  (Scott) ,  208. 


James  i.,  119. 

Jeffrey  (Edinburgh  Review),  18, 

24  .se^.,  31,  32,  36,  80,  87,  181, 

195,  199,  217. 
Judges,  duties  of,  97  seq. 

Sermon  to,  96  seq. 

"Junius,"  198. 
Juries,  Irish,  66,  67. 


238 


SYDNEY   SMITH 


K 

Keble,  151  n.,  221. 

Keogh,  Mr.,  57. 


Labouchere,  Henry,  161. 

Landseer,  161. 

Langdale,  Lord,  161. 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  18. 

Lauderdale,  Earl  of,  44,  87,  88. 

Laws,  the  Penal,  117,  120. 

Lawyers,  Sermon  to,  101. 

Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  (Macau- 
lay),  209. 

Lectures  on  Moral  Philosophy , 
31,.3.3seg.,  216  n. 

Lee,  Professor,  169. 

Lemon,  Sir  Charles,  161. 

Letter  to  the  Electors  upon  the 
Catholic  Question,  112. 

Letters  to  Archdeacon  Singleton, 
\&'iseq.,  \Q1  seq.,  195. 

Letters  from  a  Mahratta  Camp, 
Revieio  of,  233. 

Letters  (Pascal),  76. 

Liberty  of  Prophesying  (Jeremy 
Taylor),  1.30  n. 

Lister,  Thomas  Henry,  209. 

Liverpool,  Lord,  124. 

Livings,  Poor,  164,  168  seq.,  171. 

Locke,  207. 

Londonderry,  Marquis  of,  63  ?i. 

Longman  (publisher),  26. 

Lords,  House  of,  speech  on,  148. 

Louis  XIV.,  123. 

Luttrell,  Henry,  29,  87,  132,  161. 

Lyndhurst,  Lord,  124,  125. 

M 

Macaulay,  76,  84  n.,  86  n.,   122, 

123,  141,  193,  195,  209. 
Mackintosh,   Sir  James,   29,  87, 

184,  185,  207. 
Maltby,  Bishop,  207. 
Marcet,  Alexander,  29,  87. 
Mareet,  Mrs.,  87,  210. 


Markham,  Archbishop,  41. 

Marsh,  Bishop,  91  seq.,  207. 

Martyrology,  English,  119. 

Mary,  Queen,  47. 

Massinger,  207. 

Melbourne,  Lord,  144  n.,  161, 173, 

178  71. 
Methodism,  178,  179-183. 
Methodist  Magazine,  178. 
Meynell,  see  Ingram. 
Mildert,  Van,  Bishop,  77. 
Milmau,  Dean,  152. 
Milner,  Isaac,  92. 
Milton,  207. 
Mind,  Lectures  ou,  32. 
Missions,  Indian,  179, 180. 
Missionary  Society,  Baptist,  180. 
Modern  Painters  (Ru,skin),  210. 
Monk,    Bishop,    of    Gloucester, 

173,  174,  207. 
Montaigne,  208. 
Monteagle,  Lord,  161. 
Montgomery,  "Satan,"  195. 
Monuments,  National,  153,  205. 
Moore,  Thomas,  206. 
More,  Hannah,  16,  183. 
Morley,  Lady,  151. 
Morpeth,  Lord,  88. 
Murray,  Lord,  24,  25,  76,  217. 
Musical  Festivals,  206. 

N 

Napoleon,  43,  47,  50,  51,  57,  61, 

62,  64,  202. 
Netheravon,  14  seq. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  221  n. 
Newton,  Bishop,  77. 
Nicholas    Nickleby     (Dickens) , 

209. 
Noodle's  Oration,  188,  228, 
Norfolk,  Duke  of,  113. 


O 

O'Connell,  106,  128. 
Orangemen,  65. 


INDEX 


239 


Oswald,  35. 

Oxford,  9,  13. 

Oxford  Movement,  151  n.,  219. 


Paley,  217,  218. 

Paliuerston,  3. 

Paradise  Lost,  parody  of,  159. 

Paris,  122,  162. 

"  Partiugton,  Mrs.,"  Speech,  148. 

Pascal,  76. 

Peace,  blessings  of,  156-157,  191, 

202. 
Peel,  3,  32,  125,  161. 
Pelham,  Bishop,  78. 
Perceval,  Spencer,  48,  50,  51,  52, 
53,  54,  57,  59,  61,  62,  63,  65,  70, 
72,  73,  78,  124,  140,  198,  201  ?i., 
221. 

Charles  George,  73  n. 

Perspcuting  Bishops,  83  7i.,  91, 

195,  207. 
Persecution,  Religious,  117  seq., 

200. 
Peter  Plymley's  Letters,  43,  44, 

45-76,  195,  197. 
Petre,  Catholic  family,  117. 
Peveril  of  the  Peak  (Scott),  209. 
Philips,  Sir  George,  34  ?i.,  88,  89. 
Phillips,  J.  S.  R.,  110. 
Philosophy,  Moral,  Lectures  on, 

31,  S3  seq.,  216  n. 
Pirate,  The  (Scott),  208. 
Pitt,  7  n.,  22,  40,  41,  50,  51,  75, 

106. 
Plato,  35. 

Playfair,  John,  17,  25. 
Pluralities,  Church,  77  seq. 
"  Pocket  Boroughs,"  137  seq. 
Poetical  Medicine  Chest,  The,  83. 
Pope,  207. 

Praeterita  (Ruskiu),  210. 
Preaching,  19  seq. 
Prebeuds,   confiscation    of,   164, 

168  seq. 
Provincial  Letters  (Pascal),  76. 
Puseyites,  222-223. 


Pybus,  John,  22. 

Q 

Quarterly  Review,  139,  224  n. 

R 

Raikes,  Robert,  15. 

Railways,    Mismanagement    of, 

189,  190. 
Records  of  the  Creation  (Bishop 

of  Chester),  90. 
Redesdale,  Lord,  56. 
Reform  Bill ,  136  seg . ,  147-149, 199. 
Reform,  Speech  on,  139  seq.,  142- 

144. 
Reid,  Mr.  Stuart,  16,  83,  86,  111, 

198,  209  n. 

(philosopher),  34. 

Religion  iu  England,  222  n. 
Retaliatiou,  Policy  of,  62,  72. 
Revolution  of  1688,  53,  54,  117. 

French,  135,  201. 

Riots,  Bristol,  202. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  29,  87,  160. 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  29. 

Rose,  Mr.,  63. 

Rousseau,  80. 

Ruskin,  210. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  42,  123,  138, 

140,   167,   172;   Life  of  (Wal- 

pole),  62  n. 

S 
Sadler,  Michael  Thomas,  139. 
Salaries,  Bishops',  172. 
Scarlett,  James  (Lord  Abinger), 

29. 
Schools,    Public,   3,    5  seq.,  10, 

131  n. 
Scotch,  The,  28,  54. 
Scott,  18,  208,  209. 
Selwyn,  George  Augustus,  189. 
Seneca,  176. 
Sermons,  extracts  from,  20,  21, 

96,  97-105,  220,  224-225. 
Se'vigne',  Madame  de,  208. 
Seymour,  Lord,  19. 
Shakespeare,  207. 


240 


SYDNEY   SMITH 


Sharp,  "Conversation,"  29. 

Shell,  106. 

Sidmouth,  Lord,  64. 

Simeon,  Charles,  91. 

Singleton,  Archdeacon,  163,  167 
seq. 

Slave  Trade,  199. 

Smith,  Sydney  —  ancestry,  1; 
birth,  2;  school-days,  2;  life 
at  Winchester,  3  seq. ;  goes 
to  Normandy  to  perfect  his 
French,  9 ;  enters  New  College, 
Oxford,  9;  Fellow,  9;  strait- 
ened circumstances,  9;  choice 
of  a  profession,  12;  ordained 
Deacon,  13;  Priest,  14  n. ;  Cu- 
rate of  Netheravon,  13;  tutor 
to  Hicks-Beach  family,  17 ;  goes 
to  Edinburgh,  17;  sermons  at 
Charlotte  Chapel,  18  seq. ;  pub- 
lishes volume  of  sermons,  19, 
21;  marriage,  22;  children,  23; 
founds  the  Edinburgh  Review, 
24 ;  leaves  Edinburgh  for  Lon- 
don, 27;  forms  various  friend- 
ships, 29 ;  lectures  at  the  Royal 
Institution,  31;  Elementary 
Sketches  of  Moral  Philosophy, 
33;  various  duties  in  London, 
39;  increasing  prominence,  39; 
preferred  to  the  living  of 
Foston-le-Clay,  41 ;  Peter 
Plymley's  Letters,  43;  life  at 
Foston-le-Clay,  79  seq.;  visits 
his  friends  in  Edinburgh,  88 ; 
scheme  of  study  at  Fostou,  89; 
Persecuting  Bishops,  91;  at- 
tack on  Bishop  Marsh,  91 ; 
efforts  on  behalf  of  Catholic 
Emancipation,  106  seq. ;  Rector 
of  Londesborough,  110;  Letter 
to  the  Electors  on  the  Catholic 
Question,  112 ;  improved  finan- 
cial condition,  112;  visit  to 
Paris,  122;  promoted  to  pre- 
bendal  stall  at  Bristol  Cathe- 
dral, 125 ;  severs  his  connection 


with  the  Edinburgh  Review, 
125 ;  preaches  sermon  on  "Gun- 
powder Treason,"  129;  death 
of  his  eldest  son,  130;  moves 
to  Combe  Florey,  Somerset, 
131 ;  Speech  to  the  Freeholders 
on  Reform,  138;  Canon  of  St. 
Paul's,  145 ;  presented  at  Court, 
146 ;  leads  a  less  strenuous  life, 
149 ;  official  relations  with  St. 
Paul's,  152  ;  life  in  London,  159 ; 
marriage  of  his  eldest  daughter, 
161;  goes  to  Paris  again,  162; 
summit  of  his  social  fame,  163 ; 
Letters  to  Archdeacon  Single- 
ton, 163, 167 ;  inherits  a  fortune 
from  his  brother,  176 ;  publishes 
veprintof  articlesin  Edinburgh 
Review,  177 ;  decreasing  health, 
189 ;  last  illness  and  death,  192 ; 
as  father,  131,  161;  pi-eacher, 
19,  86,  96-105,  110, 123, 129, 130, 
134,  153  seq. ;  politician,  21,  22, 
29,  40,  42,  84,  136  seq.,  147  seq., 
167,  199;  lecturer,  31  seq. ;  let- 
ter-writer, 80,  123,  124,  126, 
189,  190;  pastor,  79  seq.,  110, 
135  n.,  141;  student,  89,  207; 
motives  in  writing,  27 ;  philo- 
sophical attainments,  33  seq. ; 
versatility, 33, 81, 195 ;  methods 
of  writing,  84,  90,  133;  a  rapid 
reader  and  reviewer,  90 ;  style, 
194;  humour,  195-198;  occa- 
sional coarseness,  197;  con- 
troversial methods,  197-199; 
judgment  of  various  authors, 
207  seq. ;  affectionate  and  sym- 
pathetic nature,  21,  85, 131, 133, 
184,  211,  212,  216;  honesty  and 
outspokenness,  21,  124,  129; 
financial  affairs,  27,  33,  41,  121, 
125,  145;  friends,  29,  84,87,88, 
151,  161 ;  tolerant  nature,  40, 
41,  42,  43,  45  seq.,  106  seq.,  130, 
136 ;  fancy  for  dabbling  in 
medicine,  12,  18,  82,   83,   123, 


INDEX 


241 


133,  134,  210,  232;  personal 
appearance,  122,  154, 193;  chief 
p  easiires,  133;  general  good 
qualities,  152,  153;  not  a  lover 
of  the  country,  151>-1G0;  love 
of  fun,  185-18'J,  191 ;  manner 
in  society,  194;  a  friend  of 
Freedom,  199;  lover  of  Peace, 
202-204;  his  aesthetic  sense, 
204  seq.;  attitude  towards 
Music,  205-206;  theories  of 
life,  210-21(3;  temperance,  212 
seq. ;  religious  views,  216  ,seg. ; 
some  shortcomings,  219-224 ; 
summary  of  his  character,  225. 

Smith,  Sydney,  Memoirs  of  (Lady 
Holland),  232. 

Robert  (father) ,  2. 

James  (uncle),  2. 

Mrs.,  7iee  Olier  (mother),  2, 

12,  212. 

Robert  (brother),  2,  29. 

Cecil  (brother),  2. 

Courtenay   (brother) ,   2,   9, 

176. 

Marie  (sister),  2. 

Mrs.,  n^e  Pybus  (wife),  22, 

30,  33,  80,  m,  87,  131,  134,  135. 

Saba  (daughter) ,  23,  81, 150, 

161,  214. 

Douglas  (son),  23,  37,  81,  83, 

130,  131. 

Emily  (daughter) ,  23,  37,  81, 

125,  150. 

Wyndham  (son),  23,  81. 

Adam,  34,  89. 

Smollett,  198. 

Somerset,  Duke  of,  18. 

Somerville,  Lord,  56. 

Spencer,  Hon.  and  Rev.  George, 
91. 

Stanley,  Bishop,  78. 

Stephen,  Sir  Leslie,  217. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  17, 18, 25, 34, 36. 

Stourton,  Lord,  117. 

Stowell,  Lord,  42. 

Stratheden,  Lady,  161. 

R 


Styles,  Rev.  John,  182,  183. 
Sumner,  Archbishop,  79  ?j.,  169. 
Sunday-schools,  15,  16  n.,  17. 
Swift,  75,  76,  198. 


Tait,  Archbishop,  179,  180. 

Tale  of  a  Tub  (Swift),  195. 

Talfourd,  Thomas  Noon,  173. 

Tankerville,  Lord,  87,  88. 

Taste,  Lectures  ou,  31. 

Taxes,  227. 

Temperance,  212-214. 

Terrasson,  90. 

Thomson,  25,  207. 

Thurloe,  Lord,  120  n. 

Tickiior,  George,  27,  153,  193. 

Tithes,  Irish,  70. 

Toleration,  Religious,  63,  64,  72, 
157. 

Sermons  ou,  41,  42,  128,  154. 

Travels  in  South  America  (Water- 
ton),  38,  185  seg. 

Troy,  Cardinal,  57. 

U 

Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, 54,  57. 
Universities,  the,  10,  11,  12,  152. 
Utilitarianism,  210-211. 


Valpy,  Richard,  78. 
Vernon,  Miss,  87. 
Victoria,  Queen,  Sermon  on  Ac- 
cession of,  154,  155,  224  n. 
Villages,  life  in,  14  seq. 
Voltaire,  80,  113. 

W 

Wall,  Mr.  Baring,  161. 
Walpole,  Horace,  207. 


242 


SYDNEY   SMITH 


Walpole,  Sir  Spencer,  145  n. 

War,  horrors  of,  156,  157,  191, 
202-204,  233. 

Ward,  Jolm  William  (Lord  Dud- 
ley), 29. 

Waterton,  C,  38,  185  n. 

Watson,  Bishop,  77. 

Waverley  (Scott),  208. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  125, 136, 143, 
149. 

West,  Benjamin,  204. 

Wetherell,  Sir  Charles,  139. 

Whewell,  Dr.,  32. 


Wilberforce,  Bishop,  189. 

Wilkie,  Sir  David,  39. 

William  IV.,  135,  138,  141,  142, 

143,  155,  202  n. 
Wilton,  Rev.  Richard,  110. 
Winchester  College,  2,  3,  5. 
Wordsworth,  208. 
Wrangham,  Francis,  107. 


Yorkshire  Gazette,  109  n.,  110. 
Herald,  109  ?i. 


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